It was the year before my son Lysander was born, in 2004, that we saw our firstpolarbears, magnificent nomads of imponderable grace roaming the tundra like predatory ghosts in Manitoba, Canada.Polarbearsembody vastness and unspeakable endurance in their very gait. Theirs is an almost phantomic presence. They began to haunt us as an unmatched monarch whose freedom and poise and ability to survive for months without food should humble our species.

It was only recently, returning from Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic, that we learned from Ole Jorgen Liodden, photographer and population expert, that thepolarbearswere not just being seriously threatened by melting ice but also by the continued onslaught of trophy hunters who have impaired the population for decades. In Nunavut in 2003 hunters killed 373bears, while in 2005 almost 500 were killed. The estimates ofpolarbearsin the 19 subpopulations ranging from Alaska to Russia are anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000, as is estimated byPolarBearsInternational. But as Danish biologist Morten Jorgensen claims in his cautionaryPolarBearson the Edge, this division is arbitrary. The population may be smaller.

Polarbearsare divided into units to better manage their harvesting as if they were a mere commodity.Andrew Derocher, professor of biology at the University of Alberta, wrote that he has little faith in Canadianpolarbearmanagement anymore. We have populations with no estimate for almost 20 years.When it comes topolarbears, the main threat remains climate change. Harvest, however, has impacts and some of them are obvious (eg. direct mortality) but some are more subtle (eg. number of males available for breeding.)"

In Canada, hunting for trophies has taken on insidious proportions for years. As Liodden explains,"Adult males with the best furs and trophy characteristics have been targeted for years and this is definitely affecting local populations.The large males with the fittest genes are removed from the overall population that would have benefited from the strength and experience of these males whilebearsthat are less likely to survive are left to fend for themselves impairing the mating success of the species.Trophy hunting is forcing 'reverse evolution' or evolutionarydegeneration by increasing less desirable genetic characteristics in a population.

The conservation of one of the most majestic species on Earth has been reduced to quota management. If this way of conservingpolarbearscontinues, the harvesting, the actual murder ofpolarbearsas a cash crop, will come to a climax and one day, with the added challenge of climate change, they will quite simply be no more.

I had the occasion to meet Erling Madsen, an Inuit elder awarded byPolarBearsInternational for being asteward ofpolarbearsin his village, Ittooqoormitt in Eastern Greenland. He is the guardian of his people, and with flare guns and occasionally rifles has the job of making sure children are safe frompolarbearsand daily makes sure there are no straybearscoming into the village looking for food. His village is allowed a quota of 35polarbearsa year by the Greenland government, and while Erling explained that in the old days one had to go further afield to findbears, today many more come closer to town because of climate change.

I wondered if this quota did not seem too high, especially since the overall population is decreasing worldwide. Madsen insisted that hunters respected thebears. I asked how he would feel if his people lost thepolarbearforever. He paused as if I had asked something taboo, and with a sigh answered, We would lose our souls.

Not very long ago the Inuit honored thepolarbearand hunted them for survival. As John Houston, who was born on Baffin Island and who learned Inuktikuk as a child, explains, the Inuit hope we who are polluting and melting the very ground of the Arctic will grow up and become mature adults, stop fighting amongst ourselves and acknowledge the truth of the ancient prophecy that the earth and sky can be changed by people. Stop burning thepolarbear. They are Very Important Persons and worthy of our utmost respect. Look into their souls and you will be changed.

Canada, with its vast resources, can make up for any revenue native communities miss out on if they stoppedhuntingpolarbear. As Jorgensen exclaims, the precautionary principle should be heeded. We need to "consider honestly the summative pressure onpolarbearsof all human activities. Stop claiming thatpolarbearconservation is effective today. Speak out against overexploitation and commercial abuse."Canada as a country should take responsibility for its most iconic mammal while it still can. In 10 years time, with the ice dissolving beneath their feet, its might well be too late.

In the old days, certainly before the mid-20th century, thepolarbearwas honored. Kutsikitsoq, an elder, once said, After all, thepolarbearis the one closest to us!

Thepolarbearwas closely identified with man, so much so, that according to another Inuit elder, Inurterssuaq, when one had killed abear, one was to observe a period of mourning as for humans three days for a male, five for a female. Today, trophy hunters, and members of safari clubs, pay Inuit hunters to bag apolarbear, one of the least appropriate species on earth for such killing as they have a low birthrate and high cub death rate.

As opposed to the old days, when an Inuit hunter would face down apolarbearwith a spear and put his very life on the line, today skidoos and high-powered rifles out run their prey.

Commercial exploitation becomes the focus of the relationship, and it invariably becomes a question of taking the harvest to the limit. In 2013, an 11-footpolarbearskin was being sold for $20,500 in Canadian money. In 2014, pelts cost up to $40,000 in U.S. money.One recently was sold to a Chinese client for close to $80,000 U.S. A mountedbearcan earn as much as $100,000 in U.S. money. Skyrocketing prices are fueling greed worldwide, greed that if left unchecked, could eventually lead to extermination. Canada has more than enough resources to make up the loss of revenue for native peoples, they whose world was turnedupside down by the Canadian government not so very long ago. The same trophy hunters are looking for jaguar parts in the Amazon, lions in Africa and tigers in Asia and countless other irreplaceable species around the world. As Jorgensen underscores, Phasing out the unnecessary hunt of a threatened species would send a strong signal of true stewardship of the environment, and it would constitute a strong starting point for building a solid identity in a meaningful future.

Lysander floated on a zodiac near the Svalbard shoreline just a few weeks before his 14th birthday. He had come to the same place when he was a child ten years ago. Spellbound by the ice, he reveled in the presence of a giant of being, the great icebear, a creature he had once molded into a clay figurine incarnating all the marvel and joy of childhood. There was a sense of returning to a place that had helped forge the human imagination during the Pleistocene, the roof of the world whose supreme sentinel was holding on to the last vestiges of its world.

Apolarbearmeandered among the fragmented ice, like a seemingly lost nomad searching for redemption on a scattered planet.

Time is running out for many species on Earth. The bloodlust that runs in our veins serves not our survival but our eventual defeat. As the eloquent writer and explorer of mans place in the universe Loren Eiseley warned, The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger, thebear. The hand that hefted the axe, out of some blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep.

Legislative action worldwide andespecially in Canada should be implemented immediately so that shooting ofpolarbearsis considered a crime. The trade inpolarbearbody parts should be banned. Such trade should shame the foundation of our kind. Trophy hunting needs to be eliminated forever so that the monarch of the north continues to be one of the ultimate sentinels of life on Earth. Its future is slipping through its paws as we rummage through numbers and statistics. Let humanity have a change of heart for a being we will mourn like few others, if that clay figurine our son molded when he was 6 becomes the only thing left to remind us of what was. As for future of the ice on which thepolarbeardepends so very dearly, I leave the last words to Lysander, now 14, who astutely said, The melting ice is the hourglass that measures the remainder of our time on this Earth.

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Can we stop killing polar bears while they still roam the top of the world? - The Hill

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