We originally hugged the polar bear in February, but it’s been a bit neglected. (Please check out that post if you missed it.)
The US Fish & Wildlife Service was supposed to make a decision on declaring the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but they missed their deadline of January 9. Actually, they missed their deadline twice. The second deadline was February 8.
What’s going on? Some people think they delayed so that an oil and gas lease auction could be held in key polar bear habitat on Alaska’s Chukchi Sea on February 6. I hope that’s not …read more

So far in Hug This Animal, we’ve talked about the polar bear, cheetah and red panda.
Today, we’re going to Hug a Bird that is no longer threatened with extinction. The bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, is a conservation success story. It was one of the original species protected under the Endangered Species Act when it was started in 1973.
In June of 2007, the US Fish & Wildlife Service announced that the bald eagle was being removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. (The bird will remain protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection …read more

One of the most important things to consider when thinking about an endangered or vulnerable species is that we (plants, animals and humans) are all tied together. Our actions affect animals we’ll never meet thousands of miles away.
One great example of how our actions can affect animals we don’t see in our daily lives is the polar bear, the first animal in the new Hug This Animal series.
The polar bear was reclassified as a vulnerable species on the IUCN’s (World Conservation Union) Red List of Endangered Species in 2005. That means that polar bears face a high risk of extinction …read more