The Arctic’s polar bears are on the brink. Already starving due to melting snow ice, now they will be harassed by loud, rumbling machinery as they try to raise newborn cubs.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allowed oil companies to “disturb” polar bears in a climate-destroying quest for oil across millions of acres of Alaska’s Western Arctic and Beaufort Sea.
The Center for Biological Diversity and partners just sued the Biden administration for allowing the oil industry to harass Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears.
Construction and operation of roads, pipelines, runways and wells will destroy habitat and cause harmful noise pollution. Rolling equipment could crush polar bears in their dens and scare off mother bears, leaving their cubs to starve.
Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears are the most imperiled population in the world. With only about 900 bears remaining, scientists have determined that the population cannot sustain even a single death from industrial activities. We must protect them.