[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

It's not that it's made of animal skin. It's just that it's polar bear. I really like polar bears.

Ah, I understand.

FYI, from this story:

Whether polar bears are worthy of Endangered Species Act listing is certain to be a subject of fierce debate.


The estimated worldwide polar bear population has actually increased in recent decades to around 25,000 to 30,000. But those gains are attributed mainly to a 1973 pact among the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark and the Soviet Union that restricted hunting of the animals.


More recent studies indicate that at least some of the world's 20 polar bear populations have been affected by warming trends in arctic regions. Most notably, research in Canada's Hudson Bay has demonstrated that the sea-ice season has been shortened by about 2 1/2 weeks, limiting the time polar bears have to prey on seals for sustenance. When bears are forced from the ice back to land, they typically fast for months, making the length of the ice season critical to their survival.


The listing petition by the Center for Biological Diversity cites a number of threats to polar bears, but calls global warming the chief one. Other threats cited include the accumulation of industrial pollutants such as PCBs in the bodies of polar bears and continued over-hunting of the bears in parts of Canada, Greenland and Russia.

So the answer is yes and no.