Court ruling keeps polar bear as threatened species

By Zack Colman - 03/01/13 03:38 PM ET

A federal court rejected a challenge Friday to the Fish and Wildlife Services’s 2008 decision to classify polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a 2011 ruling by a lower court, which the State of Alaska and hunting groups were challenging.

The three-judge panel determined the appellants “have neither pointed to mistakes in the agency’s reasoning nor adduced any data or studies that the agency overlooked.”

The ruling also noted the appellants did not dispute the Fish and Wildlife Services’s claims that climate change has negatively affected polar bear habitats.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, in its 2008 determination, said climate change would likely make polar bears an endangered species facing extinction in the “foreseeable future,” according to Friday’s court ruling.

“[W]e can only conclude, as did the District Court, that Appellants’ challenges ‘amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,’ ” the court opinion said.