Interior won't release polar bear report

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Facebook Twitter Email
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2001

The Department of Interior is refusing to release yet another report but this time it's not one dealing with the trust fund.

In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authored a document that said drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might violate an international polar bear treaty. But due to negotiations that were occurring by the Clinton administration about a separate polar bear agreement between the U.S. and Russia, it was never sent to Congress, an FWS official said.

As a result, the Interior won't make the document public. The Center for Biological Diversity, which already has the document, is going to sue anyway.

The bear agreement being negotiated was finalized in October 2000. It governs the harvest of polar bears and regulates the subsistence quotas of Natives in both countries, with Natives in the Chukotka region in Russia helping to implement treaty guidelines.

Alaska Natives are allowed to hunt polar bears but sport hunting is illegal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Get the Story:
New Species Enters Debate on Arctic Oil (The Washington Post 10/30)

On Polar Bears:
Ban on bear parts urged (12/13)
Polar bear treaty signed (10/17)
Polar Bear Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service - http://www.r7.fws.gov/mmm/pbear.html

Relevant Links:
Oil Issues in ANWR, US Fish and Wildlife - http://arctic.fws.gov/issues1.html
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Pro-Development site - http://www.anwr.org