Polar bear to be added to SARA’s “special concern” list

An Oct. 27 order-in-council from the federal government, set to be published on Nov. 9, will add the polar bear on a list of Canada’s species of special concern. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

An Oct. 27 order-in-council from the federal government, set to be published Nov. 9, has added the polar bear on a list of Canada’s species of special concern.

The listing of polar bears as special concern under the Species of Risk Act means a management plan must be prepared within three years to prevent them from becoming endangered or threatened.

The amendment to SARA was proposed last July and allowed for a month of feedback on the proposed changes.

To gauge public support for the listing of polar bears, Environment Canada carried out public consultations between November 2008 and March 2010.

Meetings took place in 23 of 25 Nunavut communities and 793 people attended. Of the 119 comments received, the majority did not support listing the polar bear under SARA.

The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which, under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, can approve the designation of rare, threatened and endangered species in Nunavut, told the Minister of the Environment that it would not support the proposed listing of the polar bear as a species of special concern.

The Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board also decided against the listing of the polar bear.

And last May, Nunavut’s Environment Minister Dan Shewchuk reversed the Government of Nunavut’s previously-held position in favour of listing, following consultation with hunters and elders.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. has said the listing creates an opening for animal welfare groups to try to influence Canada’s polar bear management.

The move to list polar bears comes three years after the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada assessed the polar bear as a species of special concern.

But listing polar bears as a species of special concern under SARA won’t affect the way polar bears are managed in Nunavut or the traditional rights of Inuit to hunt polar bears, the GN says.

Nunavut’s game plan with respect to polar bear management remains the same, Drikus Gissing, the GN’s director of wildlife management, told Nunatsiaq News last July.

The major change due to the SARA listing will be the development of the national plan for polar bear management, he said.

Already, the GN is collaborating with the federal government on a national polar bear conservation strategy.

That will also guide a future national management plan for polar bears and the GN’s own polar bear management plans, expected to be produced within the next two years, Gissing said.

with files from Postmedia News