Memos Tell U.S. Environmental Officials How to Discuss Climate (Andrew C. Revkin)

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Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service climate change, appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.

By ANDREW C. REVKIN -- New York Times

March 8, 2007 -- Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service climate change, appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.

In December, the Bush administration, facing a deadline under a suit by environmental groups, proposed listing polar bears throughout their range as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because the warming climate is causing a summertime retreat of sea ice that the bears use for seal hunting.

Environmentalists are trying to use such a listing to force the United States to restrict heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to global warming as a way of limiting risks to the 22,000 or so bears in the far north.

It remains unclear whether such a listing will be issued. The Fish and Wildlife Service this week held the first of several hearings in Alaska and Washington on the question.