Canadian polar bear trade under international review

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq says she is confident that a new international review of Canada’s trade in polar bear parts will reaffirm this country’s conservation of the species.

The 180-country Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, agreed last week in Mexico to conduct a lengthy study into the global trade of the iconic Arctic bears.

Known as a “significant trade review,” the study will look at the practices of all five polar bear range states — Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia — although Canada is the only one that permits commercial trade in polar bears...

According to participants in last week’s meeting in Mexico, Canada did not object to the review, which it hopes will clear the air and confirm that the current bear trade is sustainable.

Ernie Cooper of the World Wildlife Fund Canada said the review was spurred in part by a dramatic 2010 spike in polar bear exports. Cooper is the Canadian representative on an international organization that tracks global traffic in threatened species...

However, Cooper says the 2010 data, upon closer examination, actually showed a lot of biological traffic in specimens such as blood and hair samples taken from tranquilized bears.

“A bit of blood taken from a live bear or a tooth taken from a bear that’s been hunted or some hair samples isn’t the same as a polar bear rug. So a spike of 10,000 biological specimens does not mean 10,000 bears were killed,” he said.

“When you look at the data, the number of polar bear skins being traded had actually been reduced.”...

This has been excerpted from the 8 May 2014 article by the Associated Press, and is available in its entirety at http://globalnews.ca/news/1318535/canadian-polar-bear-trade-under-international-review/.