January 15th, 2010

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

The polar bear is the high-profile furry face of animals threatened by climate change. With Arctic ice melting at an increasing pace — due to global warming — its range and habitat is disappearing.

But, the polar bear is just one of many species endangered by a warming planet and other man-made threats. Beyond the tragedy of extinction of a species is the chain reaction in the environment triggered by that loss.

That complex web of life that connects people, animals, plants and places is known as biodiversity, and is the underpinning of life on Earth. To raise awareness of its importance to the planet, the United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.

Courtesy IUCN / Staghorn coral thicket © L De Vantier

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February 5th, 2009

Disneynature has released a series of images from its upcoming documentary earth. The film was five years in the making. Read more: Disney’s ‘earth’ an homage to the animal world. (c) BBC Worldwide Ltd. All rights reserved. The polar bears were filmed on Kong Karls Land, a group of islands between the Barents Sea and [...]

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May 14th, 2008

Photo: Susanne Miller / USFWS By Barbara Kessler The polar bear will be granted “threatened” status under the Endangered Species Act, the Bush Administration announced today, because the Arctic ice the animal needs to survive is shrinking and scientific projections show it will jeopardize the polar bear’s survival prospects for decades to come. But the [...]

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April 29th, 2008

By John DeFore

Are polar bears in danger of extinction? U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland wants to know, and has given the Bush administration two more weeks to find out.

Judge Wilken said today that the administration had no legitimate reason for failing to meet a January 9 deadline (one year after the bear was proposed for listing) on declaring the bears endangered or not. The judge

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