'I want to make sure it's the right decision, based on the right facts.'

A U.S. decision on whether to list polar bears as "threatened" under its Endangered Species Act was postponed by several weeks on Monday.

Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told reporters his agency extended its deadline by 30 days to cope with the flood of public comments and scientific data they have received.

"This decision is important to so many people, including us, and I want to make sure it's the right decision, based on the right facts," Hall said.

If the USFWS recommends to list polar bears as a threatened species, it will likely start a chain of events that would harm the lucrative sports hunt for polar bears in Nunavut, by banning the import of polar bear trophies to the U.S.

The sport hunt draws about $2 million into Nunavut each year. Outfitters receive as much as $25,000 for each guided tour offered to hunters, who are largely American.

The USFWS has a lot to consider. Since beginning its review, the agency has received more than 670,000 public comments, Hall said.

And, in September, the U.S. Geological Survey released nine different studies to assist in the polar bear decision, which arrive at some grim conclusions.

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will die in the next 50 years, the reports warn, as Arctic sea ice continues to melt and the bears lose the platform they use to hunt seals.

The USGS predicts the only polar bears to survive by the end of the century will be those found in Canada's Arctic archipelago, and on the west coast of Greenland. Those in Alaska and Russia, and in much of Nunavut and all of Nunavik, will have perished.

The reports strengthened the polar bear's role as the poster species for climate change, and prompted another wave of public comments to the USFWS.

But, in Nunavut, Mitchell Taylor, then the Government of Nunavut's director of wildlife research, blasted the reports as "naive and presumptuous."

But Taylor is a lone voice among most the world's polar bear biologists, who worry the majestic animals may not be able to adapt to such an abrupt change as the quickly-melting sea ice.

They point to how bears appear to be more skinny and hungry in areas such as the Western Hudson Bay, where ice has diminished.

Five of the world's 13 polar bear subpopulations are believed to be in decline.

In response, Taylor points to Southern Davis Strait, one of the southern-most areas inhabited by bears, which he says is "crawling with bears." A Nunavut-sponsored study suggests there are about 3,000 bears in the area, in contrast to the current estimate of about 850 bears.

Canada has about 15,000 of the world's 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears.

The polar bear is the first species being considered for the endangered species listing due to climate change.