The polar bear as national symbol and emblem of conservation

Today, no animal except perhaps the wolf divides opinions as strongly as does the polar bear, top predator and sentinel species of the Arctic. But while wolf protests are largely a North American and European phenomenon, polar bears unite conservationists – and their detractors – worldwide.

In the new millennium's politics, polar bears play the part whales played in the 1980s. From a theatrics-as-protest perspective, their shape lends itself better to impersonation than that of a rainforest or whale. Activists take advantage of this. Dressed as polar bears, they show up in the most unlikely places – the Kremlin, or Ottawa's Parliament Hill – as nonhuman "climate refugees." In an act billed as "part protest, part performance," Greenpeace paraded a mechanical polar bear the size of a double-decker bus through central London, as part of its Save the Arctic campaign. Fifteen puppeteers operated Aurora the bear, which had an articulated head and neck, a mouth like an ice cave, and the real bear's "slightly lazy" ambling gait.

When climate change became a pressing political issue, zoos that had closed polar bear exhibits or were planning to do so because of their high costs reversed course, making sure polar bears were on hand. In part, this reflected zoo visitors' growing interest. But zoos also stepped up their breeding programs when the species was listed as threatened – many of their bears were well past the reproductive age. They soon increased their holdings also with abandoned cubs and "problem" bears removed from the Arctic.

Like captive breeding programs and reintroduction efforts in general, science-assisted interventions in the field raise the question of what constitutes wildness, or the bearness of polar bears. One of several emergency actions proposed to relieve starving bears has helicopters airlift food to the "most accessible" ones – at a cost of $32,000 per day. (Similar programs already exist for intensely managed animal species and populations such as the California condor, black bears in Washington and brown bears in Eastern Europe.) Other last-ditch efforts biologists suggest include relocating bears farther north, where sea ice will last longer; moving more bears to zoos; and even euthanizing those unlikely to survive on their own. Some Inuit who decry even the radio-collaring of polar bears as disrespectful to the animals and who are tired of "outsiders" meddling say to just let them be.

Already, polar bears used to humans and to associating humans with food have become nuisances in communities such as Kaktovik on Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast. Villagers there and elsewhere have killed polar bears in defense of life or property, sometimes on their doorstep. The temptation for locals to feed bears to attract them and the subsequent tourist dollars also is great.

With the polar bear caught in the media's limelight, some Canadians began to consider it a more fitting national emblem than the beaver. In an attempt to oust the official signature animal – "the dentally defective rat" – one senator reminded her fellow citizens that a country's symbols are not constant and can change over time. The polar bear would be perfect for the part, with its "strength, courage, resourcefulness and dignity." An opponent countered that "you can't beat a beaver for stoic hard work and industry," a perfect metaphor for the pioneering Canadian spirit. Such resistance shows the difficulties of rebranding, with brand loyalty in this case entrenched for more than 36 years.

When the senator pitched it as a new national symbol, the polar bear had already reinvigorated Canada's oldest trade, which the animal rights movement's stance against wearing fur had previously damaged. Since the bear's numbers were thought to have declined and restrictions on hunting it consequently increased, its value as status symbol rose, to a level comparable to its first appearance in Europe during the Middle Ages. Sports hunters now pay up to $30,000 to shoot a polar bear in Canada. In the last five years, the price of pelts alone doubled, with the best selling for $20,000 or more. Even in small amounts, legal polar bear hair, used in fly-fishing, is hard to obtain. Like real flies, lures made with the hollow hairs settle gently on water. There is no equivalent, and patches of pre-treaty skin with hair sell for $6 per square inch in the United States.

All this encourages poaching, especially in Russia, where 40–200 bears are killed each year. Their skulls and skins enter the market with false Canadian documentation, the forging of which itself is a lucrative business. The resurgent demand for fur rugs, claws, carved masks with polar bear fur and similar items comes largely from Russia and China, where a growing middle class spends money on status symbols that are passé in the West. South Koreans, on the other hand, buy dried polar bear gallbladders for "medicinal" uses, at $3,000 a piece.

Canadian politicians say that initiatives to outlaw such trade or hunting are based more on emotion than on science and that the hunting quotas are sustainable. (Inuit and trophy hunters kill about 600 polar bears per year.) In the feelings it awakens, this controversy resembles the "seal wars" of the 1970s and 1980s, when big-eyed, white "baby" harp seals clubbed on sea ice caused furor and even French sex symbols became activists. Impassioned appeals, however disguised, come from both sides. "A ban would affect our ability to buy the necessities of life, to clothe our children," an Inuit representative said at the 2013 conference for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. "We have to protect our means of putting food on the table and selling polar bear hides enables us to support ourselves." Perhaps by intention, this statement counts on our empathy, on our instinct to nurture and protect the human young and frail.

The same Inuit spokesman redirected the discussion toward the root cause of the polar bear's plight. He accused the United States of compensating for its lack of action on climate change and pollution of the Arctic from drilling and mining, of using the polar bear as a blunt tool, because it is "the perfect poster child."

Contradictions abound. Matters quickly get complicated. These days, art itself can no longer be apolitical or unaware of social currents, if its mission is to change public perceptions or to transcend established practices. Inspired by the Nazca lines and children's drawings, another Icelandic artist, Bjargey Ólafsdóttir, used organic red food dye to paint a gigantic polar bear outline on Langjökull Glacier, as part of a concerted effort by artists and environmentalists to call attention to the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun. It looked as if Earthlings had made a statement for extraterrestrials, showing them that they care about bears.

Less than half a year later, coast guard personnel killed a real polar bear stranded on Iceland's northern coast – as bears have been since Norse times – because it might disappear into the fog, wander into more densely populated areas and there pose a risk to the public. A fraction of said public was very upset by the killing. It suggested marooned bears be outfitted with radio-collars and monitored – and restrained only if they became dangerous. Or they could be tranquilized and transferred to the Reykjavík zoo. Or officials could catch, cage and repatriate strays to Greenland, where, of course, they might also get shot, as part of that country's hunting quota for Inuit. The polar bear killing in Iceland in 2010, like one in 2008, garnered attention domestically and internationally. Many people thought it "unfortunate" that Icelanders were killing bears when most of the world (and some prominent Icelanders) felt that the bears needed special protection. A rich Icelandic businessman offered the use of his private jet, and to pay for the polar bear's relocation.

A 2011 pie chart by the Canadian government lies at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. In a kind of moral mathematics, it calculates the dollar value of polar bears: $400,000 per bear. While the chart mentions "intrinsic" and "cultural, artistic and spiritual values for Aboriginals," only the bears' economic worth is given in dollars – it takes up two-thirds of the pie chart. "Intrinsic value," a mere sliver of the pie, is the "bears' nonutilitarian role in the ecosystem and their right to exist." In all fairness it must be said that the report also determined how much Canadians would spend to preserve the charismatic species that graces stamps, coins and, as polar bear-shaped license plates, cars. Canadians were willing to pay what was then the price of an iPad – $508 per household – to avoid losing the country's polar bear population, estimated at 15,000. Considering the price of a trophy hunt or a skin, a dead bear is valued much more highly by a few people than a live one is by many. The less "attractive," more "alien," but no less threatened St. Lawrence Estuary beluga whale was worth one-fifth of a polar bear to the average Canadian. Even wildlife researchers are not immune to ranking North America's bear species according to their cultural, social and economic value. For many biologists, brown bears are a notch above black bears. And polar bear biologists think their subject is "the cat's meow." A bear population's numbers and status – "threatened" versus "common" – and the funding available for studying it doubtlessly influence this attitude. But more significant, perhaps, is an ever-elusive quality: the animal's perceived "charisma."

Like the bear Viking merchants traded to Europe's nobility, the emblem of nature conservation is precious as a commodity and as a pawn in political maneuvers. Even if we never reach the point where polar bears are fed bear kibble from helicopters, bears today, managed and marketed, no longer seem quite "pure" or genuinely wild. While the blending of consumer logos and wildlife might strike some people as odd, it is also no longer limited to the corporate sector. The president of Polar Bears International, a former marketing director, is dedicated to turning the bear into a recognizable environmental brand, "spinning" its image on guided tours outside Churchill. Still, overexposure and a desensitized public could weaken the message and the "Lord of the Arctic" fade to a new cliché. Some critics think polar bears have already begun to disappear in the white noise of our culture. "The polar bear has lost a lot of its cachet," the writer Jon Mooallem said in an interview. "It's become too political. It doesn't really resonate with environmentalists anymore and it ticks off everyone else." Summing up the dilemma of image, Mooallem claimed that, "In the 21st century, how species survive, or go to die, may have to do more with Barnum than with Darwin."

It may have to do even more with Konrad Lorenz, Marshall McLuhan and Jean Piaget. It has to do more with Lorenz, because he ferreted out the dynamics between market forces and ecological catastrophes (outlined in his 1973 book Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins); with McLuhan, because he realized how the medium shapes the message; and with Piaget, because he stressed learning from the past and teaching our children well. These three figures supersede Barnum, as better promotion of the polar bear will only get us so far. What's really is needed is a drastic restructuring of our society or at least our economic system.

With our tendency to mess things up and then try to fix them – culminating at present in desperate schemes of geo-engineering – we find it hard to accept that perhaps the polar bear's time is running out. And that ours could be, too.

Michael Engelhard is the author of a new essay collection, "American Wild," and of "Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon," from which this essay has been excerpted. This article originally appeared on Arctic Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about Arctic geopolitics, economy, and ecology, you can sign up to the Arctic Deeply email list."