Iqaluit (Jan 08/07) - If the American Department of the Interior decides to list polar bears as a threatened species, it will be putting Nunavut's sport hunt in the same threatened place.

That U.S. government announced over the holidays that it is considering placing the polar bear on the threatened list, and cited climate change as a major reason why.

"Inuit in small communities have limited economic opportunities. If this listing goes through, it may impact what in some cases is the main economic activity in a small community, and we will do our utmost to prevent that," said Environment Minister Patterk Netser.

With 90 days to submit information for the Americans to consider, Lily Peacock will be hard at work. She is the polar bear biologist for the Government of Nunavut. She plans to provide the best information available, but in some cases, it is 15 years old.

"Because we have 12 populations, it takes 15 years before we get to each population," Peacock explained. "We manage the population based on our numbers and Inuit knowledge. We can use a model to project. It doesn't take much to question those assumptions."

Right now, Peacock is in the second year of a three-year monitoring of the Davis Strait population.

"The idea is to capture, mark and then recapture. This is proven science over the last 100 years," said Peacock.

They do combine the observations of Inuit when making their population estimates.

"In Baffin Bay, we think the population is declining, but Inuit knowledge says that there is a healthy population there," she said. "(In Western Hudson Bay) the GN is going to investigate some of the concerns of local hunters. It has been suggested that bears have been missed."

More research would make the numbers more reliable, but Peacock understands that every problem in Nunavut requires funding. "In an ideal world, I would suggest more surveys, but there is only one of me. The amount that the GN spends on polar bear research is a lot; they are some of the best in the world," said Peacock.

Polar bear science involves so many variables that contradictions have arisen. In a released statement, the Nunavut Department of the Environment says that only one of the 12 populations is in decline. On the other hand, the Polar Bear Technical Group (PBTG) - a large group of international polar bear scientists - states that four of the populations are in decline.

They are Norwegian Bay, Western Hudson Bay, Kane Basin and Baffin Bay. The latter are co-managed with Greenland.

"In Western Hudson Bay, we have good evidence that climate change has caused the decline. Norwegian Bay and Kane Basin are being managed for the decline," said Peacock.

Netser thinks that climate change may play a role at some point, but not yet. "There is a potential for climate change to affect polar bears on a broad scale, but that is theoretical for now. The reality is we have plenty of bears and they are doing fine."

Peacock cited Baffin Bay and Western Hudson Bay as places where Inuit knowledge is at odds with the available data. She said she has confidence in the Western Hudson Bay numbers.

"Part of that is in Manitoba - the folks who study that population have studied it for 30 years. It is not just a decline in population, it is lower litter size, smaller litters, lower survival rates; and that data is pretty solid," said Peacock.

There were 449 Nunavut polar bears harvested in 2005/06. Of those, 86 were killed by visiting sport hunters. Quotas allow for 508 bears to be taken in 2006/07. There are an estimated 15,803 polar bears in all of Nunavut, and close to 25,000 worldwide.

The American announcement in December was precisely on message with the Bush White House. Along with three pages of quotes from President Bush about global warming, it mentions global warming in seven of its 20 paragraphs.

"The groups who forced this decision made it clear that they are trying to bring about a change in U.S. climate change policy," said Netser. "They have since said that their intent is not to impact Inuit communities, reminding me of the destruction of the Inuit sealing economy by Greenpeace in the 1980s. Greenpeace later said that they had not intended to hurt the Inuit, but by then it was too late."

A decision on classifying the polar bear as threatened will take one year. If the threatened status is enforced, sport hunters will no longer be able to take any part of their trophy home, barring an act passed by both U.S. houses and signed by President Bush.