Oct. 31–Steller sea lions living in the far eastern Gulf of Alaska are no longer considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but will still receive certain protections.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, announced Oct. 23 that the eastern distinct population segment, or DPS, of Steller sea lions are considered recovered, and no longer needed to be listed as threatened, a rare occurrence for the agency. The eastern population includes sea lions from Cape Suckling, which is south of Cordova in the Gulf of Alaska, to the Channel Islands in California.
NMFS announced the delisting Oct. 23, and it will go into affect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, which had not happened as of Oct. 29.
Alaska, Oregon and Washington petitioned for the delisting in 2010.
According to the agency, the eastern population has meet the recovery criteria detailed in a 2008 plan and no longer meets the criteria for threatened or endangered under the ESA.
The eastern population was estimated at 70,174 sea lions in 2010, up from 18,040 in 1979, according to the agency’s status review, and has had an estimated annual growth rate of 4.18 percent in that same time frame.
Steller sea lions were listed as threatened in 1990, and the east and west DPS designations were given in 1997. The western population was reclassified as endangered that same year.
The process to delist the sea lions has been underway since a 2010 review and the subsequent state petitions. The agency issued a draft status review in April 2012 indicating that the stock was healthier, which received 1,144 public comments.
NMFS and the State of Alaska also reached an agreement in 2012 to continue state actions limiting Steller sea lion mortality that was part of the basis for the delisting.
Oceana, an environmental nonprofit, supported the recent announcement.
“The delisting of the eastern population of Steller sea lions is a success story for the Endangered Species Act,” said Susan Murray, Oceana’s deputy vice president for the Pacific, in a statement. “We are all the keepers of our oceans, and measures like the ESA help to protect and restore the health and biodiversity of the sea.”
This will be just the second time in a decade that the agency delists a species, and certain protections for the sea lions will remain in effect.
The last species to be delisted was the North Pacific gray whale in 1994.
The 2013 status review also contains a post-delisting plan for the species that will be in affect for 10 years. That’s twice as long as the ESA mandates a delisting plan be in effect, according to the agency.
According to the plan, “(the) longer period is necessary in part because of the underlying biology of the species and because of the statistical power needed to detect a change in the trajectory of the population.”
Under the post-delisting plan, NMFS will monitor the population to detect changes in pup production and non-pup counts and monitor and identify residual and new threats to the sea lions. The plan calls for aerial surveys in Southeast Alaska every other year, and range-wide surveys less frequently. Under the plan, a decline in population or pup production could cause the agency to study the cause and consider relisting the eastern population.
The plan also calls for a focused look at the southern end of the sea lion range. Some California rockeries have been abandoned, and sea lions there are not as well off as their farther north counterparts. NMFS considered whether or not Steller sea lions in the California Current System, which includes California, Oregon and Washington, warranted their own DPS, and found that they did not, but the plan calls for continued look at issues in California and the potential for range contraction.
The species will still be protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, or MMPA, under which the eastern Steller sea lion is listed as depleted. The act limits the taking of marine mammals, reviews projects with potential impacts, and calls for a triennial look at abundance and trends in the population. Most recently, the agency reviewed the impact of Seattle’s Elliott Bay seawall replacement on Steller sea lions, and required certain mitigation measures.
Fishermen won’t see a change due to the delisting, as no activity was limited from the listing, according to NMFS spokesperson Julie Speegle.
The delisting plan, however, does require ongoing monitoring of human activities that could affect the sea lions, and of prey species abundance.
According to the final rule, the Southeast Alaska drift fleet, salmon trollers and Gulf of Alaska longliners, have the potential to impact sea lions, but the known mortality from those fleets is relatively low.
Fishing has been limited in the Aleutian Islands due to the status of the western population. That population stretches west from the Gulf of Alaska to Russia and Asia, and parts of the Aleutian Islands are considered critical habitat for the species.
Fishing for Pacific cod, Atka mackerel and pollock has been significantly restricted in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to protect the sea lions, although a court-ordered review of the protections is underway.
The same recovery plan applies to the western sea lions as the eastern population, and some of the authors have publically distanced themselves from the plan, asserting that the final version was significantly different from the draft they signed off on, and questioning if it set fair criteria, particularly for the western sea lion population.
Molly Dischner can be reached at [email protected].