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This is all regarding ANWR, I think.

Designating the polar bear an endangered species would basically put anything which COULD endanger the species off limits. Take a high powered leftist envirowacko lawyer and ask him/her (hem?) to make a case and Katie bar the door - he/she/it will make it a world crisis!

H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis wrote earlier this year that it is a mistake to assume polar bears can’t adapt to a warmer climate:

Comprehensive research demonstrates that since the 1970s — while much of the world was warming — polar bear numbers increased dramatically to approximately 25,000 today (higher than at any time in the 20th century). Research conducted by the World Wildlife Fund shows that of the 20 distinct polar bear populations worldwide only two — accounting for about 16.4 percent of the total number of bears — are decreasing. Those populations are in areas where air temperatures have actually fallen, such as the Baffin Bay region. By contrast, another two populations — about 13.6 percent of the total — are growing, and they live in areas were air temperatures have risen.

Evolutionary biologist and paleozoologist Susan Crockford, of Canada’s University of Victoria, points out that polar bears have historically thrived when temperatures were warmer than today’s — during the medieval warming 1,000 years ago and during the Holocene Climate Optimum 5,000 to 9,000 years ago.

Polar bears thrive during warmer climates because they are omnivores, like brown and black bears. Though seals are currently their primary food source, research shows that they have a varied diet and take advantage of other foods when those are available. Their diets can include fish, kelp, caribou, ducks, sea birds, the occasional beluga whale and musk ox and scavenged whale and walrus carcasses.

Mitchell Taylor also testified to the FWS that a modest warming may be beneficial to bears. It creates a better habitat for seals and would dramatically increase the growth of blueberries on which the bears like to gorge.