Purpose: This bill would allow the importation of polar bear trophies taken in sport hunts in Canada before the date the polar bear was determined to be a threatened species. The MMPA established a moratorium on the import of marine mammals and marine mammal products, including the import of all sport-hunted marine mammal trophies. However, in 1994, the MMPA was modified to allow the import of sport-hunted trophies from Canada and this, unfortunately, remained true until polar bears recently were deemed a threatened species.
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Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Action: OPPOSE. Please contact your two U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose S. 1395. Tell your Senators that polar bears are in jeopardy and S. 1395 will only hasten the slide of polar bears toward extinction.
Talking Points for your letter:
- Based on threats to polar bear populations, the U.S. Department of the Interior proposed in 2006 that polar bears be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act and they, in fact, were listed in 2008.
- Polar bears have low reproductive rates, have long lives, and rely on high adult survival rates to maintain population numbers. Polar bear populations are under stress from climate change and habitat degradation.
- Polar bear hunting in the United States is prohibited except for small numbers of Alaskans who must do so for subsistence.
- The U.S. should not condone hunting a threatened species. This legislation validates the trophy hunters who skirted the spirit of U.S. law by killing polar bears abroad and bringing their heads back across the border to America.