Let’s check in on the latest polar bear shenanigans, shall we? Two months after deadline, the Interior Department still has made no decision on whether Ursus maritimus should be listed as a threatened species. Spurred by a critical letter from environmental groups, the agency’s inspector general has begun preliminary inquiries into why the decision is taking so long. Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity, and NRDC will also file a lawsuit on Monday to get the agency to hurry up — in hopes, of course, of a decision favoring protection. And Eskimos in Alaska and Canada continue to protest that the bears are in fact thriving, and that listing them would threaten the livelihoods of subsistence hunters.
