Uncontrolled in polar bear hunting

2003/06/19 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Ingurumena

The US service Fish and Wildlife has shown concern that in the Txuktxien Sea, north of the Bering Strait, which separates the United States from Russia, too many polar bears are being hunted. Lately the Russians are hunting between 100 and 250 polar bears a year, too much to be sustainable. According to the estimates of the organization, the region has about four thousand polar bears and, if it continues to hunt so much, the population can be halved in twenty years.

The region is one of the poorest in Russia and since the decline of the Soviet Union its inhabitants have found no other form of survival. They earn a living by hunting bears and selling skins, although bear hunting in Russia was banned in the 1950s.

The concern of Americans is not unfounded. In fact, in Alaska, the polar bear was in danger of extinction in the 1960s due to sport hunting. Since then, its inhabitants are the only ones who can hunt the bear for about 50 years.