Environment Canada visits North for talks on polar bear status

Environment Canada officials are talking with people in Canada's North as part of consultations on whether to keep the polar bear listed as a species of special concern under the federal Species at Risk Act.

The consultations are needed before the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board can issue a recommendation on the polar bear's status to the federal environment minister, said David Ingstrup, Environment Canada's regional director in Edmonton.

Ingstrup added that that process will be long, but he added that officials want to take their time consulting northerners on what is generally a sensitive subject.

"It's an important issue to Environment Canada, and we think it's very necessary that we seek the views of the various communities in this regard, given that the polar bear is such an important species throughout the North," he told CBC News.

The polar bear has been a species of special concern since 1991.

Ingstrup said officials have visited 16 of Nunavut's 25 communities to date, with plans to visit all them all. They will also visit communities in the Northwest Territories, Labrador and the Nunavik region of northern Quebec.

A federal scientific committee recommended in April 2008 that the polar bear be listed as a species of special concern, which is one step below a threatened species and two steps below endangered.