Early in January, a Sarah Palin op-ed appeared in the NY Times in which she argued against adding the Polar Bear to the list of endangered species because the polar bear populations in the Arctic were healthy:

“…polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis.”

The governor said that the bears were “magnificent animals, not cartoon characters” that are “worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat,” but added that putting them on the endangered species list was the wrong way to do it.

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