In its ongoing and relentless program of ignoring or suppressing science in favor of extraction industries which support the regime, a study of polar bear denning behavior that has been ready for release for three months is delayed by the director of the US Geological Survey. The study covers a region of the southern Beaufort Sea and coast which has been opened up to oli and gas drilling. The study says that persistence of polar bears in the Arctic is threatened by the decline of sea ice due to climate change while providing opportunities for more fossil fuel exploration. The study also concludes that 34% of all polar bear denning sites are in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, also an area previously out of bounds to oil exploration, but recently opened to the oil industry. Federal officials are close to signing off on a drilling project in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. The US Fish and Wildlife is required to cite the USGS study in its decision on drilling impacts for bears. The former astronaut who is now head of USGS wants to know why his agency's study needs to be made public.
The answer to the former astronaut's question is obvious: he wants to avoid the negative public outcry against disturbing bears already under pressure from man's alteration of global climate patterns, and possible legal challenges to agency decision to go ahead with resource extraction in an area inhabited by polar bears trying to survive. Only 900 bears are estimated to survive in the southern Beaufort Sea, about five hundred seventy-three of which live in Alaska. Delaying release of the report, which has already been vetted by career scientists at the agency, is "unprecedented" according to one insider interviewed by the WaPo. But this is not the first time Director Reilly has held up reports that mention climate change as a causative factor; his office held up a report that said California would suffer $150 billion in damage from rising sea levels and flooding caused by climate change.
Reilly has questioned numerous research projections made by his agency as the lead federal bureau on climate issues, say former employees. For example, he wanted his researchers to document each individual bear den in a featureless, snow covered landscape where den entrances are sometimes twelve inches across. Researchers replied such an effort would be practically impossible over such a large area. The study used estimates of bear density that are in line with other studies of the Beaufort Sea population, which has suffered steep declines due to lost of sea ice habitat used for hunting.[photo credit: WWF]