U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne speaks Wednesday during a news conference at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. Kempthorne announced that the polar bear would be added to the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Activists dressed as polar bears attended the news conference Wednesday where U.S. Secretary of the Interior Kempthorne announced that polar bears had been added to the list of threatened species. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images)
A polar bear off-shore near Barrow, Ala., in May 2006. (Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage / Associated Press)
A polar bear mother and her two cubs walk along the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba near Churchill, Canada, last year. The tiny town of Churchill, about six blocks long, is ground zero for polar bears in fall. Tourists flock here to see them close-up. (Jonathan Hayward / Associated Press)
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A polar bear in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The photo dates to 2003. (Subhankar Banerjee / Associated Press)
Germany dedicated a special-issue stamp to its popular captive polar bear cub, Knut, which lives in the Berlin Zoo. (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press)