By Gerald Karey on October 16, 2009 2:04 PM

Call it poetic justice: faced with the loss of Arctic sea ice because of global warming, increasing polar bear sightings are being reported around coastal Alaska oil and gas operations, raising the possibility of dangerous encounters and disrupted operations.

Polar bears den and spend much of their lives on sea ice which is shrinking and thinning because of global warming attributable, in part, to burning fossil fuels. The bears appear to be "looking for another option as their traditional habitat is not a healthy as it used to be," said Steve Amstrup of the US Geological Survey, Reuters reported.

Oil companies reported 321 polar bear sightings in 2007 and 313 in 2008, about four times the annual average from 1994 through 2000, according the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

There have been no recent polar bear attacks on workers (the last polar bear mauling was of a contract worker in 1993). Companies take great efforts to avoid any potentially dangerous encounters, Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, told Reuters.

While no one has been injured of late, last spring a mother bear with cubs forced a late-season shutdown of the ice road to Point Thompson, a prospect 55 miles east of Prudhoe Bay. And the ice roads themselves, which are critical to oil company operations on the North Slope, are usable for shorter periods of time because of global warming.