NOAA Studies Four Seals Species As Possible Endangered
By Alaska Journal of Commerce, Anchorage
Apr. 6–NOAA Fisheries Service is preparing status reviews of ribbon, bearded, spotted and ringed seals for possible listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Doug Mecum, acting administrator for the Alaska region of NOAA Fisheries Service, said March 26 that the agency has accepted a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, based in San Francisco, asking for protection of ribbon seals in the Bering Sea by listing them as endangered.
Mecum said that while the four species of ice seals in Alaska all utilize various types of sea ice habitats, they use the ice in different ways, and a careful status review of each species is warranted.
NOAA Fisheries Service has until the end of this year to prepare a status review and decide whether to list the ribbon seals as endangered, so that species will be the initial focus of NOAA experts, Mecum said. Status reviews of the other three species of ice seals will be performed after the ribbon seal review is completed.
The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned NOAA Fisheries Service last December to list the ribbon seal as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The petition states that global warming threatens ribbon seals with extinction because of the rapid melt of sea ice habitat. The agency decided the petition provided enough information to indicate that action may be warranted under the law.
NOAA’s finding was based, in part, on predicted changes in ribbon seals’ sea ice habitat as a result of global climate change, according to a written release. Other considerations were the high number of seals the Russian Federation has allowed for harvest in recent years, potential impacts of oil and gas development and production in both the United States and Russia, and the potential impacts of commercial fisheries and climate change on ribbon seal prey distribution and abundance.
Ribbon seals use the marginal sea ice zone in the Bering and Okhotsk seas for reproduction, molting and as a resting platform. In the summer and fall, they forage in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
NOAA’s notice filed with the Federal Register is online at www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/fedregisterseal2.pdf.
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