How to save the Polar Bear?

The Russian Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry has approved the plan of protecting the white bears, worked out by the World Wide Fund for Nature, in collaboration with   leading experts in the area. Here are more details by Tatyana Filipova.

The main aim of the strategy is  to protect the population of  polar bears in the Russian Arctic by reducing the man caused negative influence on them.In recent years, the plight of white bears had worsened due to the melting of the Arctic ice, caused by the climate change and the exploration of the region. The situation has called for the thrashing out of the first strategy for the saving of the largest predator on earth, said Evgeny Shvarts, WWF representative in Russia, speaking in an interview for VOR.

We  want to ensure that each species are registered in the Red Book, and to make certain that  the Russian Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry, scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the appropriate academic institutions, the World Wide Fund for Nature and nongovernmental  organizations, together  with leading experts work out a strategy for the protection of the species, that could be  approved by  the Ministry on behalf of Russia, said Shvarts. We are happy that two strategies- for the protection of the polar bear and the Amur tiger have been approved, he said.

The strategy defines all the steps to be taken to understand what is happening to the white bear and what should be done to prevent its extinction. The white bear serves as an indicator of the health of the Arctic ecosystem, and is at the same time, one of the most vulnerable of the species. It is at the head of the WWF’s list of animals under the threat of being wiped out by the climate change, said Shvarts.The white bear lives mainly on floating ice, which it uses as the launch pad for hunting. The shrinking of the Arctic ice forces the bear to leave its natural habitat and move close to the bank to become the prey of poachers. A third of the world’s population of the white bears can be found in the Russian part of the Arctic,  Franz-Joseph Land and  Wrangel Island.  Hence Russia has more responsibility than others for the protection of the polar bear.