On Monday, Judge Claudia Wilken of the Federal District Court in Oakland, Ca., gave the Interior Department until May 15 to decide if polar bears deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. federal government contends the case is too complicated to decide before June 30. Hence the department has delayed the ruling for four months. The judge also ordered the decision to take effect, immediately, instead of a 30-day grace period.

According to the New York Times, “in January 2007, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service issued a proposal to list the polar bear as threatened because warming global temperatures were melting the sea ice the animals use as a platform to hunt seals, breed and make dens.”

Oil and gas development could be drastically curtailed if polar bears are placed under the Endangered Species Act. The Interior Department recently held a $2.6 billion lease sale covering a 46,000-square-mile area of the Chukchi Sea off of northwestern Alaska.

To read the entire article from the New York Times, link here:

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