Native Hunters Want to Profit From Slaughtering Polar Bears? Tough

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I disagree completely with the Obama administration's decision of last week to uphold a Bush-era regulation that limits protection of polar bears from the effects of global warming.

Still, the arctic icon is on the endangered species list and that in and of itself has one spectacular side-effect: It protects the bear from sport hunters. Guiding sport hunters was a once-lucrative business for Inuit hunting guides in Nunavut.

Jose Kusugak, president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association in central Nunavut, told Canadian Broadcasting, the U.S. should not use polar bears as a tool in the climate change debate, but instead address climate change as a whole issue. According to CBC News:

"They don't look at the consequences of what's happening with the people that are there, hunting these species," he said.

"So it does become very, very frustrating."

If Mr. Kusugak's definition of frustration is the fact his tribe cannot make money off the slaughter of bears, I have little sympathy for him.

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