Are polar bears an endangered species?

Which of the following statements do you think is true?

• Polar bear populations have been in decline for some time.
• Polar bear populations are healthy.

The answer may surprise you.

Reg Sherren examines the facts behind both statements in a new documentary calledThe Politics ofPolar Bears.

For some time now the suggestion has been that polar bears are in trouble and that many sub-populations of ursus maritimus have been decreasing.

Scientist Andrew Derocher has spent his career studying polar bears. He's a longstanding member andpast chair of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, composed of researchers from the five circumpolar nations Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States.

Derocher isa professor of biological science at the University of Alberta, and he has been more outspokenthan most about the peril Churchill'sbig bears are facing.

"They could be gone in a coupleof years," he says. "Our estimations are, if we had a very early melt, and a very late freeze, we could see up to 50per cent mortality in a single year. You put a couple of years like that back-to-back, and things couldhappen very quickly."

But not everyone agrees with that statement.

In fact, just last year Environment Canada reported that, "The polar bear does not have a small wildpopulation, it does not have a restricted area of distribution and no marked decline has been observed."

Biologist Markus Dyckworks in Nunavut andsays whileclimatic changes are real and observed,only one or two populations appear to bedeclining slightly due to changes in sea ice.

In The Politics of Polar Bears, Sherrenwillpick his way through the message track to help you decide what isreally happening with the largest land carnivore on the planet.

The Politics of Polar Bearsairs Saturday, August 30 at 7 p.m. on CBC Television in Manitoba.