Last-Ditch Resort: Move Polar Bears to Antarctica?

If the most dire climate predictions come to pass, the Arctic ice cap will melt entirely, and polar bears could face extinction.
Polar Bears
On May 14, the U.S. Department of the Interior declared polar bears "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
(Getty Images)

So why not pack a few off to Antarctica, where the sea ice will never run out?

It may seem like a preposterous question. But polar bears are just the tip of the "assisted colonization" iceberg. Other possibilities: moving African big game to the American Great Plains, or airlifting endangered species from one mountaintop to another as climate zones shrink.

"It's a showdown. The impacts of climate change on animals have become apparent. And it's time to decide whether we're going to do something," said Notre Dame ecologist Jessica Hellmann, co-author of an influential 2007 Conservation Biology paper (.pdf). "Reducing CO2 is vital, but we might have to step in and intervene."

Once dismissed as wrongheaded and dangerous, assisted colonization -- rescuing vanishing species by moving them someplace new -- is now being discussed by serious conservationists. And no wonder: Caught between climate change and human pressure, species are going extinct 100 times faster than at any point in human history.