Get your checkbooks ready! Here’s one more…
According to The Polar Bear Conservancy Media Center:
The program is expected to cost $30 million U.S., or approximately $10,000 U.S. per polar bear. The Polar Bear Conservancy has raised the first $15 million from corporate donors and is seeking additional funding through industry and government partnerships.
“This innovative private program will save taxpayers dollars billions of dollars that would otherwise be wasted on unnecessary habitat protection and economically ruinous strategies designed to combat so-called climate change,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.”
The first batch of polar bears will be released on the edge of the Ross Sea near emperor penguin colonies trapped by the recent movement of giant icebergs C16 and B15A. “These penguins would starve to death anyway,” said Polar Bear Conservancy staff biologist Jon Heidenberg. “Now they can provide an initial source of food for the polar bears while they acclimate to their new environment.”