The government of Nunavut will oppose a U.S. proposal to list polar bears as a threatened species, Environment Minister Patterk Netser says.

At the urging of environmental groups, the U.S. announced last week it is considering listing the bears as threatened under its Endangered Species Act.

Nunavut says polar bear populations are not endangered.
(CBC News)

Nunavut is afraid the listing would hurt its lucrative polar bear sport hunting industry since many of the hunters are American, Netser said in a recent interview.

The territory's polar bear population is doing fine, he said.

"There's a lot of uninformed people and these people feed on the ignorances of these people and force governments to make … policies that are very reactive or very hard on the people of Nunavut," Netser said.

The environmental groups argue the polar bear population is declining because global warming is destroying their habitat.

Netser said it is too early to tell whether climate change is affecting the animals, although the ice is freezing later in the year.

The Nunavut government will submit its comments to the U.S. government within the 90-day comment period.

A final decision is not expected until the end of the year.

There are between 22,000 and 25,000 polar bears in the world with about 60 per cent of those spread across northern Canada.