Saving the Lord of the Arctic
His search to understand the Lord of the Arctic, Ursus maritimus, the polar bear, has taken him to one of the harshest environments in the world – a frozen seascape where temperatures plummet below zero and the sun isn’t seen for months on end.
Dr. Steven C. Amstrup, working on polar bear conservation, has been selected from among a group of six finalists to receive the 2012 Indianapolis Prize – the world’s leading award for animal conservation.
Hope that the iconic and endangered polar bear may survive is due in large part to Dr. Amstrup and his team and their studies that resulted in the listing of polar bears as a threatened species because of global warming.
Amstrup’s three decades of polar bear research and his unwavering conviction that solutions can and must be found are creating new optimism that polar bears can be saved from extinction.
It is in recognition of his life-long work to transform the world’s understanding of and efforts to save polar bears that Steven C. Amstrup, chief scientist for Polar Bears International, has been named the recipient of the Indianapolis Prize.
The biennial Prize includes an unrestricted award of $100,000 and the Lilly Medal, which will be presented at the Indianapolis Prize Gala ceremony presented by Cummins, Inc. on Sept. 29, 2012, in Indianapolis.
