The article begins off by saying that the polar bear has been added as “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. It was added to the list because of the melting ice due to global warming, this is why the polar bear was listed as “threatened”. It has the chance to become extinct, because the ice is a vital part of a polar bears life. The decision to add them to the endangered list was presented by a computer model that states that if nothing is done, 30% of the sea ice will be gone, in 2050. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, stated during a press conference “the ESA will not be used as a tool for trying to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for creating climate change.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=polar-bears-threatened
