BARROW, ALASKA — Federal scientists flying over the Arctic Ocean last month spotted something nearly unprecedented during their annual count of bowhead whales: nine polar bears in the open sea, miles from anywhere.
One was swimming 60 miles off Barrow. A flight a week or so later found five bears plying their way through the swells. The findings wouldn't have been so alarming -- they are powerful swimmers -- except that their likely destination, the sea ice on which the predators depend for survival, had retreated 400 miles offshore.
U.S. Geological Survey biologists believe that, if current climate-change trends continue, every polar bear in Alaska could be gone by 2050.
Yet Gov. Sarah Palin's administration has fought federal protections announced in May for polar bears, going to court to assert that the projections for a dramatic shrinking of the bears' icy habitat are unreliable and that polar bears are already protected enough.
Since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee this month, Palin has championed a balance between energy exploration and environmental regulation. A review of her record as governor shows that, most often, she has tilted that balance in favor of oil and gas development, mining and hunting -- the economic backbones of a state that many residents consider both a scenic treasure and an exploitable resource.
"From further oil and gas development to fishing, mining, timber and tourism -- these developments remain the core of our state," Palin told state legislators last year.
"We here in Alaska share concerns about wildlife, of course -- every Alaskan has concerns about wildlife," she later said. "We're going to continue to . . . make sure that polar bears survive, and thrive, for decades to come."
Since Palin became governor in 2006, the state has sought to ramp up a program that encourages the shooting of wolves from aircraft in areas where they compete with human hunters for moose, caribou and deer.
Federal law prohibits aerial hunting of wolves, which can involve planes chasing wounded and terrified animals until they can't run anymore. But a loophole allows Alaska to impose "airborne predator management" across 60,000 square miles. Palin sought last year to significantly raise the number of wolves killed under the program by putting a $150 bounty on dead wolves, until a judge blocked the payments.
