Conservation

Huge Polar Bear Habitat Proposed

200,000-square-mile reserve to save the animals.

In what would be the largest habitat zone in the U.S., the Interior Department proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles of the northern Alaska coast as a critical habitat for polar bears. Officials said the designation would not conflict with the oil and gas industries there, nor would it affect the biggest threat to polar bears: sea ice disappearing because of global warming. The proposal follows warnings that the bears could be wiped out in America by the end of the century. As ice floes have melted, the bears have been pushed inland, where residents of Alaskan North Slope native villages are allowed to hunt them for food.