The U.S. government is listing the polar bear as a threatened species, but despite calls from environmentalists, the Canadian government is unlikely to follow.

The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service means the polar bear is one level below the U.S. endangered designation and that polar bear products will be banned in the U.S.

Last month, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada advised the Canadian government to keep the polar bear designation here as "special concern" -- one step below threatened and two below endangered.

BASED ON SCIENCE

"The Americans have American science based on their two sub-populations. We have 13 different sub-populations," Environment Minister John Baird said yesterday. "We have a scientific panel that ... have independently come to the conclusion that it should be an issue of special concern."

But Peter Ewins, of World Wildlife Federation Canada, says we should reconsider that advice.

"The (Canadian) process ... has been performed by assuming that the sea ice will remain the same, that is a very false assumption," he said.

On the other side of the debate, hunters and trappers in small communities in the Canadian Arctic were disappointed with the U.S. decision and accompanying prohibitions on the import of polar bear products.

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