Polar Bear SOS!

The bear is sliding toward extinction, imperiled by climate change and trophy hunters.

The polar bear’s future is literally melting away along with the Arctic sea ice beneath its feet. Meanwhile, some countries continue to allow the bears to be hunted for sport and their body parts to be sold legally in the international commercial market.

The polar bear has been sending us a desperate S.O.S. There have been documented reports of polar bears drowning and starving — and of snowy dens collapsing on newborn cubs and their mothers from unseasonable rains. The world no longer has any polar bears to spare — certainly not to end up as a rug in front of a trophy hunter’s fireplace. We have to put a stop to the worldwide commercial trade in polar bear parts.

-Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NRDC Senior Attorney

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Holding on for dear life

The trophy hunting lobby wants to take away the polar bear's lifesaving protections — so they can kill bears and put them on display.

Polar Bear S.O.S.!

Polar bears are facing extinction as the Arctic rapidly melts from global warming.

What's at Stake

Polar bears belong in the wild, living and free — not as mounted decorations in the trophy rooms of wealthy big game hunters.

Upgrading the polar bear's protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) represents our best hope for saving them from trophy hunting and the ongoing commercial trade in polar bear pelts, fur, claws and skulls.

NRDC has launched an intensive two-year effort in advance of the 2013 meeting of CITES, which could act to ban this trade in goods made from polar bears and tighten controls on polar bear trophy hunts.