http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Polar-bear-hunting-campaigners-mislead-public/story-20471281-detail/story.htmlPolar bear hunting campaigns 'mislead public and divert focus from climate change threat'
By Western Daily Press | Posted: January 21, 2014
Polar bear hunting campaigners 'mislead public and ignore climate change'
Loss of habitat through climate change is one of the biggest problems facing polar bears - but it is an aspect ignored by animal welfare groups opposed to hunting, who oversimplify the debate, researchers say
Campaigns to stop the hunting of polar bears may be doing the animals more harm than good by oversimplifying the debate and ignoring the threat posed by climate change.
Animal welfare groups opposed to hunting by Inuit groups are also said to have manipulated numerical data and misled the public through narratives of impending extinction.
A joint study by the universities of Exeter and Saskatchewan, Canada, found that campaigns by animal welfare organisations, often backed by celebrities, targeted hunting while virtually ignoring the loss of sea ice habitat due to human-induced climate change.
University of Exeter geographer Dr Martina Tyrrell and Dr Doug Clark from the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability, examined the fallout from a media campaign in the run-up to the March 2013 proposal to severely limit or prohibit trade in polar bears under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Dr Tyrrell said: “By obscuring the root causes of the threats to polar bears, the likelihood of truly rational, feasible, and justifiable conservation actions for a warming Arctic may be receding just as fast as the region’s sea ice.”
Their article examines the data used by animal welfare organisations in an attempt to sway public opinion regarding polar bear hunting.
Dr Tyrrell continued: “Parties on all sides are likely to have the best interests of polar bear populations at heart, but unfortunately only paying attention to one side of the issue places their future in greater jeopardy. An oversimplified emphasis on polar bear hunting diverts attention away from climate change-induced sea ice loss and from the realities of humans and animals sharing that habitat.”
In their paper, published in the latest issue of the journal Global Environmental Change, they also highlight the lack of consideration paid to ongoing and long-term polar bear conservation management practices and the potential economic and cultural impacts of a CITES ban on indigenous Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic.
Dr Clark said: “The data was manipulated to grossly conflate the international trade in bears. They also presented a well-managed Inuit subsistence hunt as a for-profit enterprise. Indigenous rights guaranteed in land claims allow Inuit to hunt polar bears. Under their management, the hunt also injects much-needed income into Inuit communities in Canada’s North.”
While the US-Russian-backed proposal to ban polar bear trade was not voted in by CITES delegates last year, the researchers expect the issue to come up again and are advising a more even-handed approach when it does.
“If we are going to come up with effective and appropriate multilateral conservation policies that can be acted upon and supported by the public, we need more nuanced conversations and media coverage about polar bear conservation,” added Dr Clark.
