[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON STELLER SEA LIONS
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 20, 1999, WASHINGTON, DC
__________
Serial No. 106-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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house
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
ELTON GALLEGLY, California DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California Samoa
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
KEN CALVERT, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
RICHARD W. POMBO, California OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ADAM SMITH, Washington
KEVIN BRADY, Texas WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
RICK HILL, Montana DONNA CHRISTIAN-CHRISTENSEN,
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado Virgin Islands
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada RON KIND, Wisconsin
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana JAY INSLEE, Washington
GREG WALDEN, Oregon GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania TOM UDALL, New Mexico
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina MARK UDALL, Colorado
MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah Samoa
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
RICHARD W. POMBO, California PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
Carolina SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho Rico
ADAM SMITH, Washington
Harry Burroughs, Staff Director
Dave Whaley, Legislative Staff
Jean Flemma, Democratic Legislative Staff
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held May 20, 1999........................................ 1
Statement of Members:
Saxton, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New Jersey.............................................. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Young, Hon. Don, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Alaska..................................................
Prepared statement of................................... 2
Pallone, Hon. Frank, Jr., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New Jersey, Prepared statement of............. 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Burch, Al, Executive Director, Alaska Draggers Association... 86
Prepared statement of.................................... 89
Jacobsen, Hon. Dick, Mayor, Aleutians East Borough, Alaska,
Prepared statement of...................................... 65
Kelty, Hon. Frank V., Mayor, City of Unalaska, Alaska........ 78
Prepared statement of.................................... 80
Lavigne, Dr. David, Executive Director, International Marine
Mammal Association......................................... 21
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
Marks, Rick, Steller Sea Lion Caucus......................... 36
Prepared statement of.................................... 39
Owletuck, George, Anchorage, Alaska.......................... 96
Prepared statement of.................................... 98
Pereyra, Dr. Walter, Vice Chairman, North Pacific Fishery
Management Council......................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Rosenberg, Dr. Andrew, Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service............... 10
Prepared statement of.................................... 12
Stewart, Beth, Natural Resources Director, Aleutians East
Borough, Alaska............................................ 63
Van Tuyn, Peter, Trustees for Alaska......................... 100
Prepared statement of.................................... 102
Wynne, Kate, Marine Mammal Specialist, Alaska Sea Grant
Marine Advisory Program.................................... 17
Prepared statement of.................................... 18
Additional material supplied:
Backgound Memorandum......................................... 109
Boyd, I.L., Prepared statement of............................ 118
Marks, Rick, Response to questions........................... 122
Swetzof, Simeon, Mayor, and John R. Merculief, City Manager,
City of Saint Paul, Pribilof Islands, Alaska, Prepared
statement of............................................... 125
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON STELLER SEA LIONS
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THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation,
Wildlife and Oceans,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m. in
Room 1334 Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jim Saxton
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Saxton. The Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation,
Wildlife and Oceans will come to order.
Good afternoon.
Today, we will discuss the National Marine Fisheries
Service's research program on Steller sea lions in the Bering
Sea. We are here because there is apparently a great deal of
distrust about whether NMFS has an adequate scientific basis
for making adjustments to the pollock and mackerel fisheries
off Alaska.
We will hear the agency's presentation on the research
program, and we will listen to the concerns of a number of
witnesses who have legitimate, unanswered questions. It seems
to me that the major questions for this hearing are:
One, do we know what caused the decline in Steller
sea lion populations in the Bering Sea?
Two, do we know enough about Steller sea lions and
their life history to determine what is preventing
their recovery?
Three, has there been a physical change in the Bering
Sea which has altered the ecosystem? If that has
occurred, could that be the cause of the decline and,
therefore, be an impediment to the recovery?
And finally, four, has the Federal Government
adequately completed its scientific research
responsibilities so as to convince the fishing
community that the proposed changes to the fisheries
will actually make a difference, or is there so much
uncertainty that we really don't know what we are
doing?
I believe that the last question is the most important. If
you can clearly identify a problem and a solution, then
everyone will work together to accomplish the goal. If there is
scientific uncertainty, distrust and animosity, then the
process of cooperatively working together to find a solution is
doomed and will fail.
I would like to recognize others who might have statements.
Mr. Gilchrest, do you have any opening statement? Thank you for
coming. I ask unanimous consent that all Subcommittee Members
be permitted to include their opening statement in the record.
[The prepared statements follow:]
STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Good afternoon. Today we will discuss the National Marine
Fisheries Service's research program on Steller sea lions in
the Bering Sea. We are here because there is apparently a great
deal of distrust about whether NMFS has an adequate scientific
basis for making adjustments to the pollock and mackerel
fisheries off Alaska.
We will hear the agency's presentation on its research
program and we will listen to the concerns of a number of
witnesses who have legitimate, unanswered questions. It seems
to me that the major questions for this hearing are:
Do we know what caused the decline of Steller sea lion
populations in the Bering Sea?
Do we know enough about Steller sea lions and their
life history to determine what is preventing their recovery?
Has there been a physical change in the Bering Sea
which has altered the entire ecosystem? If that has occurred,
could that be the cause of the decline and, therefore, be an
impediment to the recovery? And,
Has the Federal Government adequately completed its
scientific research responsibilities so as to convince the
fishing community that the proposed changes to the fisheries
will actually make a difference, or is there so much
uncertainty that we really don't know what we are doing?
I believe the last question is the most important. If you can
clearly identify a problem and a solution, then everyone will work
together to accomplish the goal. If there is scientific uncertainty,
distrust and animosity, then the process of cooperatively working
together to find a solution is doomed to fail.
______
STATEMENT OF HON. DON YOUNG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE
STATE OF ALASKA
We are here to discuss Steller sea lions in the Bering Sea and the
Gulf of Alaska, the lack of science and general information about this
animal, and the inability of the agency charged with responsibility for
conserving this species to answer basic questions.
Let me briefly summarize the situation we now find ourselves in.
For years, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has
consistently determined that the pollock fishery did not jeopardize the
recovery of Steller sea lions.
It is my understanding that NMFS made this determination, either
formally or informally, not once or twice, but 39 times. Now, because
of the filing of a lawsuit by various environmental groups, NMFS has
done a 180-degree turn and finds that the pollock fishery does indeed
pose a risk to the recovery of the Steller sea lion. How remarkable! I
am really curious how the agency made this determination when no new
science has been presented which makes that break-through discovery.
Let me see if I've got the situation properly in perspective:
No one has debated that the western population of
Steller sea lions has been declining. Unfortunately, the agency
does not seem to know, and does not seem to care, why the
western stock has declined so rapidly in the last twenty years.
The agency has not requested an increase in its Steller
sea lion research budget in at least six years, and probably
longer than that, even though Congress increased the funding
for Steller research in Fiscal Year 1998.
Since 1992, the agency has had a research plan, which
was developed by the Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan Team, yet
many of the research recommendations have still not been
funded.
The agency has ignored or rejected research projects
conducted by scientists outside the agency (and, in fact, some
of the research conducted by scientists within the agency)
because the conclusions didn't match the agency's latest
theory.
The agency completed no new research projects between
its decision in 1996 that the pollock fishery did not pose a
jeopardy to the recovery of the western population and the 1998
decision that the fishery did indeed pose a threat to the
recovery.
The agency declared in a report to Congress, as late as
October 1998, that ``Given the current understanding of the sea
lion/fishery prey interactions, additional research is
warranted prior to establishing revised management actions.''
The agency drafted and circulated Reasonable and
Prudent Alternatives (or RPAs) concluding that there needed to
be changes to the pollock fishery even before it had released a
draft Biological Opinion.
The agency appears to have had no intention of
including the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in any
decision about potential changes in the management of the
pollock fishery.
This appears to be a situation where the agency had a theory, but
not enough science to either prove or disprove it, and once its bluff
had been called by a lawsuit, hid behind the ``precautionary
principle'' and the ``best available science'' excuses to attack the
pollock fishery in the hope that the lawsuit would go away. I am
convinced that the agency has neither best available science nor knows
whether the management changes in its proposal will have any positive
effect on the Steller populations. While NMFS has no clue whether these
measures will be good for sea lions, it certainly will have negative
effects on fishermen and the communities that depend on this resource.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Alaskan
fishing industry have always been proactive when dealing with potential
resource problems. They took action to change management of the Atka
mackerel fishery when presented with credible evidence that changes
were needed for sea lions. They have taken action to prevent a targeted
forage fish fishery in the Gulf of Alaska. They constantly take action
to minimize bycatch, to close specific areas when necessary for
conservation reasons, and have always set conservative harvest levels.
In this case, if they had been presented with credible science in time,
they could have taken proactive action to help Steller sea lions.
Unfortunately, they were constantly told by the agency that there was
not a problem with the pollock fishery.
This is a typical response from this agency. It cannot control the
environmental changes occurring in the ocean, will not control
predators, but the one area it can control is the fishing fleet. What
will happen--based on the closed areas and proposed closed areas I have
seen--is that small boat fishermen are going to be forced to fish in
seas that are unsafe for that vessel size. The agency is responsible
for these people and should consider the effect the closed areas will
have on small vessels. Instead, the agency will do whatever it takes to
save the Steller sea lion, without having the proper science, and will
risk the lives of fishermen because it has the power to do so. This is
unacceptable and I am tired of having the lives of my constituents used
as barter to stop lawsuits, most of which have no merit anyway!
I am deeply concerned with the actions of the agency in this case.
NMFS has more questions than answers and doesn't seem to care that its
actions have consequences for fishermen and fishing communities.
______
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing to discuss the
dramatic decline of the Steller sea lion in the north Pacific Ocean. As
a coastal district Member, I have always been supportive of protecting
our Nation's splendid marine resources. I am also well aware of the
complex dynamic that exists when managing marine mammals. I am eager to
learn more about the reasons for the Steller sea lion population
decline and the role the commercial fishery may play in the depletion
of pollock, the principle prey of sea lions.
An alarming decline in the abundance of Steller sea lions has
occurred throughout their range over the past 30 years. The estimated
population has dropped from about 280,000 non-pups in the early 1960's
to approximately 52,200 in 1994. This represents a decline of about
232,000 sea lions, or about 70 percent of the population, in just 34
years. As a result, Steller sea lions were afforded protection as a
threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, and the
Aleutian stock is now under consideration for endangered status.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has implemented a
Steller sea lion recovery plan and designated areas as critical
habitat. NMFS has also restricted commercial fishing activity in
Steller habitat in an attempt to stop deleterious impacts on Steller
feeding activity. Regrettably, despite these conservation efforts, the
Steller population continues to decline.
Uncertainty continues to surround the reasons for this downward
trend. Disagreement centers on whether commercial exploitation of
pollock and the associated reduction of a food supply are having as
significant an impact to the sea lions as some suggest.
The Steller population crash has indeed coincided with intensified
commercial fishing in and around rookeries and haul-out sites. Flagrant
overfishing of roe-bearing pollock during the winter spawning season,
and a decrease in the abundance of young pollock of the size preferred
by juvenile sea lions have undoubtedly played a role in sea lion
decline. Yet some reports estimate that pollock numbers in the Bering
Sea have been at an all time high during this time period. These
ambiguities must be addressed if we are to effectively reverse the
species decline.
While it is true that fishery exploitation in Steller habitat took
place in the 1980's, it is far too convenient to lay blame solely on
overfishing. What other contributing factors could be causing
nutritional stress and be preventing a full Steller recovery? Has a
change in the Bering Sea ecosystem played a role in prey availability?
Has direct mortality from commercial fishing, rather solely
overfishing, played an additional role in the sea lions' decline?
I applaud National Marine Fishery Service efforts to amend
groundfish management plans in the north Pacific Ocean to ensure that
Federal actions do not jeopardize the Steller sea lion. However, in
order to ensure the species' full protection, we must minimize any
human-induced activity that may be detrimental to the survival of the
species. I hope that today's hearing will help identify such
activities, clarify actions needed to reverse this unfortunate decline,
and define action needed to restore the Steller sea lion to a healthy
level.
There is an urgent need to take immediate steps to ensure that
future generations can enjoy this wonderful animal. I look forward to
learning to what extent the issues I have raised contribute to the
necessary protection of the Steller sea lion.
Mr. Saxton. I would like now to introduce our witnesses on
Panel I. We have Dr. Walter Pereyra, Vice Chairman of the North
Pacific Fishery Management Council; Dr. Andy Rosenberg, Deputy
Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, National Marine
Fisheries Service; Ms. Kate Wynne, Marine Mammal Specialist,
Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program; Dr. David Lavigne,
Executive Director, International Marine Mammal Association;
and Mr. Rick Marks, Steller Sea Lion Caucus.
Would you all take your places, please, at the table, and
let me remind you, while you are doing so, that under our
Committee rules your statements are limited to five minutes,
but your entire statement will be made a part of the record.
Dr. Pereyra, you may begin when you are ready and in your
place. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DR. WALTER PEREYRA, VICE CHAIRMAN, NORTH PACIFIC
FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL
Dr. Pereyra. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Dr. Walter
Pereyra. I am a former NMFS scientist, and I am presently
chairman and part owner of Arctic Storm, which owns and manages
two catcher processors in the Bering Sea fishery for pollock
and also a couple of catcher boats which participate in that
same fishery. I am also vice chairman of the North Pacific
Fishery Management Council, which is responsible, together with
NMFS, for the conservation and management of the fishery
resources in the Federal waters off Alaska. This is my ninth
and final year on the council, and I could say something about
that but I won't.
Mr. Gilchrest. I would like to hear that part.
Dr. Pereyra. You might not.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to
appear before you today to comment on the issue of the decline
of the Steller sea lion populations in certain areas off
Alaska. As requested, I will focus my attention on the
perceived and actual deficiencies in the Steller sea lion
research and management program and also how the National
Marine Fisheries Service could improve or expand on its current
research program. I will also offer some comments on other
research areas that could be pursued to better understand the
reasons for the current decline in the western population of
Steller sea lions.
I have taken the liberty to review the extensive comments
and recommendations of the Council's Scientific and Statistical
Committee, but I want to emphasize that the SSC's comments
notwithstanding, the conclusions that I have drawn and the
recommendations that I have put forth here before you are
really my own.
Now, with regard to the decline of the Steller sea lion
populations in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and the Gulf
of Alaska, there has been a considerable amount of literature
on this particular subject, and I think it is pretty well-known
that this decline has been quite substantial; but despite the
research and scientific inquiry into the factors that have led
to this decline, these factors remain poorly understood at
best. Moreover, there has been no conclusive evidence that the
pollock fishery is the causative factor, either directly or
indirectly, in the sea lion's decline, and I would like to
note, if I may, that the independent review panel which was
established to review the biological opinion and the jeopardy
decision, that review panel just issued their report this week,
and that report concluded, and I would quote, ``The relative
importance of environmental changes in the carrying capacity
versus the effects of commercial pollock fisheries in the
Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska on hypothesized food
shortages to Steller sea lions is unknown.''
Now, in my mind the difficulty with which we find ourselves
today was created by the listing of the western population of
Steller sea lions as endangered under the ESA in June of 1997
together with our poor understanding of the dynamics of the
Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska ecosystems and their relationship
to the Steller sea lion population. This endangered listing
immediately put the Council and NMFS in a difficult position of
having to take the so-called precautionary management actions
to the pollock fishery without the benefit of an adequate
understanding of the relationship between the fishery and the
Steller sea lion population.
Without such an understanding, we have no assurance that
despite our good intentions we, in fact, will be doing anything
to benefit the recovery of the Steller sea lion population. We
do know, though, that these remedial management measures will
negatively impact the economics of the important pollock
fishery in waters off Alaska. Furthermore, there is some
suggestion that certain of the reasonable and prudent
alternatives could actually be hindering the recovery of the
sea lion population itself.
Now, in gaining an appreciation of the considerable
research required to adequately understand this complex
subject, it is helpful to note that the National Marine
Fisheries Service concluded in their opinion from the Section 7
consultation that the decline in the sea lion population was
due most likely to decreased juvenile survival, with reduced
availability of prey identified as the underlying cause.
In response to this conclusion, the National Marine
Fisheries Service recommended the RPA's, consisting principally
of additional fishery exclusion zones around rookeries and
haulouts and so-called time-area restrictions on the pollock
fishery, as a means of buffering the sea lions from possible
fishery-induced localized depletion of prey stocks. These
management measures have been invoked despite the fact that
there has been no conclusive proof that the pollock fishery is
responsible for any localized depletion of the prey species or
that if such localized depletion does in fact occur, that
foraging ability of sea lions is compromised in any way.
Now, in looking at the deficiencies that we have in these
Steller research and management programs, I feel that the lack
of funding, the need to invoke the new measures to manage the
fishery following a listing and the narrow focus of the inquiry
into the basic reasons for the sea lion's decline appear to be
responsible for these deficiencies, and I will go through, I
think, some of the areas where I think these deficiencies
exist.
The first is localized depletions--the underlying
hypothesis driving the finding of jeopardy and the RPA
principles is a notion that the pollock fishery is responsible
for the localized depletion of pollock within the Steller sea
lion's critical habitat and, furthermore, that this localized
depletion has negatively impacted the sea lions. Attempts to
measure localized impacts of fishing on the population density
of pollock by tracking temporal changes in catch per unit
efforts in the fishery and the abundance of pollock within the
critical habitat have been unsuccessful. Therefore, fishery
independent surveys in conjunction with the fishery I feel are
going to be required to quantitatively assess the relationship,
if there is any at all, between fishing and localized
depletion.
Along with studies of fishery-induced localized depletion,
there is a need to determine the degree to which localized
depletions, if they are occurring, negatively impacts the sea
lion's ability to forage successfully, and we have no knowledge
of this important relationship either. If the pollock fishery
impairs the foraging success, then we need to know more about
the relationship between foraging success and the sea lions'
overall condition and fitness.
The next area where I think there is a need for expanded
research is in the time-area distribution of the pollock. The
proposed RPAs involving these time-area regulations of the
pollock fishery are premised on an understanding of this
distribution and abundance.
Mr. Saxton. Dr. Pereyra, could you summarize or give us an
outline of the balance of your testimony? That would be
appreciated. Thank you.
Dr. Pereyra. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. I think that there is
a need to expand the winter surveys in the Bering Sea. There is
also a need to expand the summer surveys. If we don't do that,
we are not going to know whether we are, in fact, helping or
hindering the Steller sea lions by the way we are managing the
fishery.
We also have put in a number of closure areas around
rookeries since the early nineties. These have never been
studied to determine whether or not they, in fact, are helping
the Stellers recover at all.
Predator studies--there have been lots of reports on killer
whales, so-called orcas. I think these really have never been
looked at in a critical manner. There have not been any studies
done on orca distribution or abundance levels of orcas and that
needs to be done because they could, in fact, be hindering the
recovery of the Stellers entirely just by the pressure that
they put on the population from their predation.
And lastly, I think very important are ecosystem studies.
There has been a lot of information that has been gathered
recently on the so-called Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is
a regime shift as in the seventies when we had a major change
in the Bering Sea ecosystem. This now seems to be going back
the other way. This can have an effect upon the very important
small fish populations, the capelin, the herring, the smelts
and so forth, that seem to be, based upon some other studies
that are being done, seem to be very important to the overall
health of the sea lions.
So, in summary, Mr. Chairman, I think there is need,
probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 million a
year, of additional research money appropriated for these very
important studies in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pereyra follows:]
STATEMENT OF DR. WALTER T. PEREYRA, VICE CHAIRMAN, NORTH PACIFIC
FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL, CHAIRMAN, ARCTIC STORM, INC.
My name is Dr. Walter T. Pereyra. I am a former National
Marine Fisheries Service (``NMFS'') fisheries scientist.
Presently I am Chairman and part owner of the Arctic Storm,
Inc. (``Arctic Storm''). Arctic Storm owns and/or manages two
catcher processors, one of which is in partnership with the
Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, and two catcher
vessels, all of which participate in the Bering Sea and
Aleutian Island fisheries for Alaskan pollock. I am also Vice
Chairman of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council
(``Council'') which is responsible together with NMFS for the
conservation and management of the fishery resources in the
Federal waters off Alaska. I am serving my ninth and final year
on the Council.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased
to appear before you today to comment on the issue of the
decline of the Steller sea lion populations in certain areas
off Alaska. As requested, I will focus my attention on
perceived and actual deficiencies in the NMFS' Steller sea lion
research and management program, and how the agency could
improve or expand on its current research program. I will also
offer some comments on other research areas that could be
pursued to better understand the reasons for the current
decline in the western population of Steller sea lions. In
developing my thoughts on this subject I have taken into
consideration the extensive comments and recommendations of the
Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (``SSC''). The
SSC not withstanding the conclusions drawn and recommendations
put forth in this statement are my own.
Decline of the western population of Steller Sea Lions
The decline of the Steller sea lion populations in Bering
Sea and Aleutian Islands (``BSAI'') and the central and western
areas of the Gulf of Alaska (``GOA'') has been well chronicled.
Despite considerable research and scientific inquiry into the
factors that have led to this decline, these factors remain
poorly understood at best. Moreover, there has been no
conclusive evidence that the pollock fishery is the causative
factor either directly or indirectly for the sea lions'
decline. Despite this scientific uncertainty, though, the NMFS
concluded in their Biological Opinion (``BO'') following an
extensive Section 7 consultation under the Endangered Species
Act (``ESA''), that the pollock fishery as proposed for 1999-
2002 was ``likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the
western population of Steller sea lions and adversely modify
its critical habitat.''
The roles of the Council and its SSC in regards to this
Section 7 consultation have been minimal. While we were able to
comment at length on the content of the BO and conclusions
drawn, the BO itself was exclusively the domain of the NMFS--
they had the responsibility for producing the BO and they alone
arrived at the conclusion of jeopardy. Also they alone
established the Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (``RPA'')
principals by which the Council had to shape its suite of
recommended RPAs to NMFS for management of the pollock fishery.
For the 1999 pollock fishery NWS rejected the Council's RPA
recommendations for the summer/fall portion of the fishery. We
will meet next month in Kodiak to revise our recommendations
for the remainder of this year, and for the year 2000 and
beyond.
In my mind the difficulty in which we find ourselves today
was created by the NMFS' listing of the western population of
Steller sea lions as endangered under the ESA in June 1997
together with our poor understanding of the dynamics of the
BSAI and GOA ecosystems and their relationship to the Steller
sea lion population. This endangered listing immediately put
the Council and NMFS in the difficult position of having to
take so-called precautionary management actions to the pollock
fishery without the benefit of an adequate understanding of the
relationship between the fishery and the Steller sea lion
population. Without such an understanding we have no assurance
that despite our good intentions we in fact will be doing
anything to benefit the recovery of the Steller sea lion
population. We do know, though, that these remedial management
measures will negatively impact the economics of the pollock
fishery. Furthermore, there is some suggestion that certain
RPAs could actually be hindering the recovery of the Steller
sea lion population.
In gaining an appreciation of the considerable research
required to adequately understand the complex subject of the
Steller sea lion decline and RPAs, it is helpful to note NMFS'
concluding opinion from their Section 7 consultation and the
BO. They concluded that the decline in the sea lion population
was due most likely to decreased juvenile survival with reduced
availability of prey identified as the underlying cause. In
response to this conclusion NMFS recommended RPAs consisting
principally of additional fishery exclusion zones around
rookeries and haulouts, and time-area restrictions on the
pollock fishery as a means of ``buffering'' sea lions from
possible fishery-induced localized depletion of prey stocks.
These management measures have been invoked despite the fact
that there has been no conclusive proof that the pollock
fishery is responsible for any localized depletion of prey
species or that if such localized depletion does in fact occur,
that foraging ability of sea lions is compromised in any way.
Deficiencies in NMFS' Steller sea lion research and management
programs
Certain deficiencies can be identified in NMFS' Steller sea
lion research and management programs. These deficiencies
appear to be due to a lack of funding, the need to invoke new
measures to manage the pollock fishery following the listing of
the Steller sea lion as endangered, and the narrow focus of the
NMFS' inquiry into the basic reasons for the sea lion's
decline. Some of these deficiencies have been known for more
than 10 years but remarkably little has been invested in
research to answer the questions raised. A discussion of the
more important research deficiencies follows.
(1) Localized depletion--the underlying hypothesis driving
the finding of jeopardy and the RPA principals is the notion
that the pollock fishery is responsible for localized depletion
of pollock within the Steller sea lion's critical habitat
(``CH''); and furthermore, that this localized depletion has
negatively impacted the sea lions. Attempts to measure
localized impacts of fishing on the population density of
pollock by tracking temporal changes in catch-per-unit-effort
in the fishery and abundance of pollock within the CH have been
unsuccessful. Therefore, fishery independent surveys in
conjunction with the fishery are going to be required to
quantitatively assess the relationship, if any, of fishing to
localized depletion.
Along with studies on fishery-induced localized depletion
there is a need to determine the degree to which localized
depletion, should it be occurring, negatively impacts the sea
lions' ability to forage successfully. We have no knowledge of
this important relationship. If the pollock fishery impairs
foraging success, we then need to know more as to the
relationship between foraging success and the sea lions'
overall condition and fitness.
(2) Time-area distribution of pollock--The proposed RPAs
involving time-area regulations on the pollock fishery are
premised on an understanding of the distribution and abundance
of the pollock population at the time of the fishery. Due to
the lack of winter surveys and the timing of the summer
surveys, time-area RPAs have had to be established in a
speculative manner. This has put the conduct of the pollock
fishery in jeopardy and raised the possibility of the pollock
fishery being forced to operate disproportionately to the
distribution of pollock, a situation that would be contrary to
the intent of the RPAs themselves.
To reduce the potential risk to both the pollock fishery
and the Steller sea lions, there is an immediate need for NMFS
to conduct winter surveys to determine the winter distribution
of pollock relative to the CH prior to the start of the
fishery. There is also a need to expand and alter the timing of
the summer survey to determine the distribution of pollock
relative to the CH and the eastern and western portions of the
eastern Bering Sea. Both the winter and summer surveys need to
be conducted annually, synoptic in nature (multi-vessel) and
include surveys of both the on-bottom and off-bottom components
of the pollock population.
(3) Efficacy of trawl exclusion zones--Trawl exclusion
zones around certain sea lion rookeries have been in place
since 1992. To date there have been no experiments or analyses
conducted by the NMFS to test the efficacy of these no trawl
zones. This lack of experimental studies is disturbing
considering that in May, 1997 when it reclassified the western
population from threatened to endangered, NMFS stated that it
was premature to propose changes to the Steller sea lion
protective measures, because ``(1) more time is required to
assess what, if any, benefit has been derived from the actions
currently in place [a reference to the no trawl zones adopted
in 1992 and 1993]; and (2) given the limited knowledge of the
sea lion/fishery prey interaction and the effect of human
disturbance, it is difficult to identify meaningful management
actions in addition to those already in place.'' Recently an
industry analyst examined NMFS' site-by-site sea lion count
data and demonstrated that rookery sites open to trawling had
experienced improving population trends as opposed to those
sites closed to trawling. NMFS has refuted this finding but has
not offered any research to counter these conclusions. It is
imperative that NMFS design and conduct a controlled experiment
to directly test the efficacy of the no trawl zones. Only in
this manner will it be possible to determine whether the trawl
exclusion zones around rookeries are beneficial (or adverse) to
the Steller sea lions. It should be noted that the closure this
year of the Aleutian Islands to all directed pollock fishing
can not substitute for a controlled efficacy experiment of the
trawl exclusion zones due to the importance of Atka mackerel as
forage for sea lions in this area and the lack of a suitable
control to the Aleutian Island closure.
(4) Predator studies--One of the ongoing debates surrounds
the possibility that predation by killer whales (``orcas'')
could be impeding the sea lion's recovery. Fishermen have
reported seeing large pods of orcas in the Bering Sea in recent
years and observations of killer whales attacking sea lions are
common. Unfortunately, due to the dispersed nature of the orca
population, their distribution in pods and survey difficulties,
our knowledge of the distribution and abundance, and feeding
ecology of these known sea lion predators is wanting. Attention
should be given to assessing, the size and distribution of the
orca population so as to ascertain their potential impact on
the recovery of the Steller sea lion.
(5) Feeding studies of captive sea lions by Dr. Andrew
Trites and his colleagues associated with the University Marine
Mammal Consortium have revealed some illuminating results. For
one they have found that pollock may in fact be an unsuitable
food source for the Steller sea lion which may explain in part
for the decline of the sea lion population despite an increased
abundance of pollock. Conversely more oily species such as
herring and/or a more diverse diet appear to be more suitable
for sea lions. These studies suggest that diet and lack of
diversity could be a leading cause for the decline of Steller
sea lions. These captive studies need to be expanded and
refined to help answer important questions regarding the
relationship between the availability of certain species as
food for sea lions and the robustness of the Steller sea lion
population.
Ecosystem investigations
There is a growing realization that quite possibly a major
regime shift associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
(``PDO'') may help explain the long-term changes we have
witnessed in the western population of the Steller sea lion. It
has been hypothesized that changes in the position and strength
of the Aleutian low pressure could be largely responsible for
this regime shift and that this change resulted in fundamental
changes in the production characteristics of the entire North
Pacific Basin. One change may have been a reduction in the
populations of oily forage species such as herring, smelts and
capelin, all of potential importance in the diet of Steller sea
lions. This in turn may have reduced the carrying capacity of
the environment for Steller sea lions, which in turn would have
resulted in a population decline. Unfortunately our historical
knowledge of the characteristics of the Steller sea lion
population is lacking, as is our understanding of the PDO and
its effect on the Steller sea lion population.
An examination of the PDO and its possible effect on the
Steller sea lion population should become a focused research
endeavor. Such a holistic approach to understanding the reasons
for long term changes in the sea lion population would be
consistent with the recommendations by the NMFS Ecosystem
Principles Advisory Panel in their recent report to Congress
entitled Ecosystem-based Fishery Management. Research into the
environmental causes for changes in the sea lion population
would benefit from the ``Integrated Ocean Observation Plan'' as
recently recommended to this Subcommittee by the National Ocean
Research Leadership Council.
The foregoing comments on deficiencies in the NMFS research
and management program on Steller sea lions, and ways in which
the agency could improve or expand its current research program
are not meant to be critical. I am acutely aware of the
difficulties and costs involved in conducting research on
Steller sea lions, particularly ecosystem studies. Our SSC has
estimated the cost of improved and new research studies in the
range of $10-14 million annually. They also have stressed the
importance of improved communications on the part of NMFS so
that inter-disciplinary and multi-institutional research
efforts may emerge.
I hope that my comments may be helpful in moving this much
needed research regarding Steller sea lions forward on a broad
front. Certainly if we are ever going to be able to manage our
fisheries in an adaptive manner, we must gain a better
understanding of the reasons for the Steller sea lion decline
and the efficacy of management measures taken to mitigate this
decline. Without such an improved understanding of the dynamics
of the Steller sea lion population and its relation to the
fisheries we risk impacting the recovery of the Steller sea
lions and the health of the important pollock and other
fisheries of the North Pacific.
Thank you.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, sir.
Dr. Rosenberg.
STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW ROSENBERG, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR FOR FISHERIES, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE
Dr. Rosenberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. I thank you for inviting me to testify before the
Committee today on the science supporting NOAA Fisheries'
recent biological opinion and the conservation measures to
ensure protection for the endangered western population of
Steller sea lions. I am Andrew Rosenberg, the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, and I am accompanied by
agency regional and headquarter staff to try to help answer
your questions.
NOAA is committed to the sustainable stewardship of marine
fisheries, as well as to the protection and recovery of
endangered and threatened marine species, and we recognize this
dual commitment requires us to find a balance between
endangered species protection and efficient utilization of
fisheries for the U.S. fishing industry and the U.S. public.
Today, I am here to discuss the recent management measures
developed with the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council
in response to our biological opinion to reduce the potential
effects of Alaskan groundfish fisheries on Steller sea lions.
Developing these measures has been a complex task due to the
competing statutory responsibilities we have and the complexity
of the biological, social and economic features of the problem,
and in fulfilling our responsibilities, we have used the best
available scientific and commercial information.
A recent peer review just cited by Dr. Pereyra of the
supporting science of the biological opinion stated, quote, the
panel believes that in general the best available data and
analysis were used in the preparation of the opinion, end
quote. I would like to point out two features of the actions we
have taken which we believe are innovative and, though
controversial, vitally important in working towards prudent
steps for protecting Steller sea lions in a reasonable manner
for the fishing industry.
Compared to many endangered species actions, we have had a
very high level of public involvement in developing a plan to
allow the fishery to operate without jeopardizing the sea lion
population. We have had public meetings which normally is not
the case with Endangered Species Act actions. We have had open
meetings with industry and environmental groups. We have had
direct and open interaction with the councils, and we have
provided material on our web site prior to the conclusion of
the biological opinion in order to allow the public to comment.
Secondly, we have provided substantial flexibility for the
council to help us address fishery-related concerns by crafting
a framework of principles for reasonable and prudent
alternatives, rather than a prescriptive solution to the
problem. In other words, we have explicitly recognized in our
biological opinion that there are many possible ways to
accomplish the goal of protecting sea lions from the indirect
effects of fishing.
The western population of Steller sea lions was listed as
endangered in 1997 because the measures in place to protect
them have not halted the continued decline of the population,
and it is vitally important to recognize that at issue in the
opinion is the continued decline, not the cause of earlier
declines, although they may be related, but they may not in
many cases.
The Endangered Species Act requires that each Federal
agency ensure that any action carried out is not likely to
jeopardize the continued existence of an endangered species or
result in adverse modification of its habitat. That is the
standard that we are working under, and to engage in that
action--any action that is viewed as jeopardizing the continued
existence means to engage in that action would reasonably be
expected directly or indirectly to reduce appreciably the
likelihood of both the survival and recovery of a listed
species in the wild. That is the way the standard that we are
working with under the Endangered Species Act reads.
Our consultations focused on groundfish fisheries because
these fisheries and Steller sea lions target the same prey. We
have identified indirect interactions with fisheries as one of
the factors that may have a continued impact on the ability of
Steller sea lions to recover as well as to halt the decline in
the first place. The removal of up to 70 percent of the
pollock, total allowable catch, from critical habitat areas,
combined with evidence that sea lions are nutritionally
stressed, that pollock are their most important prey, that
fishing and sea lion foraging overlap extensively, all indicate
that fisheries are reasonably likely to compete with sea lions
and jeopardize their population. This conclusion was confirmed
by the recent independent peer review of the science.
ESA requires when an interaction is likely to jeopardize a
population that the agency prepare reasonable, prudent
alternatives, and, Mr. Chairman, we are well aware that what is
reasonable for the fishery and prudent for the sea lions is a
judgment call that we are required to make, and it will always
be controversial as evidenced by this hearing and the lawsuit
in which we are currently engaged, and we believe we have been
reasonable for many reasons, and I want to mention a few.
We decided the evidence did not indicate that a reduction
in overall pollock quota was necessary, and we also worked
extremely hard, and I want to acknowledge NOAA staff here, to
ensure that our protection measures were in place so that the
fishery could open as planned on January 20th and proceed for a
profitable A season which, in fact, did occur, taking the full
quota for the A season this past year.
In December the council voted to approve a motion
containing a number of conservation measures for the first half
of 1999, and again, we had the opportunity to allow the council
to craft those measures as opposed to prescribe a set of
measures that they had to adhere to. That is the framework
principles that I described before.
To be prudent for the sea lions, the reasonable and prudent
alternatives, disperse the pollock fishery in time and space
and protect sea lions from competition in waters adjacent to
rookeries and haulouts.
Our strategy for research and recovery of Steller sea lions
is described in the Steller sea lion recovery plan, and that
plan which is developed by experts from outside of NMFS, with
one exception on the team, uses the same principles that we
used in our reasonable and prudent alternatives. Towards this
end, the recovery team in NMFS has recently completed four peer
review workshops on different elements of the Steller sea lion
research effort, and we hope to incorporate those in a revised
recovery plan, which is our most urgent objective at this
stage, is to revise the recovery plan.
In summary, in the highly charged atmosphere dealing with a
very complex issue, NOAA Fisheries is making an effort to
strike a balance between the needs of the Alaska groundfish
fishery and the needs to protect Steller sea lions, while
fulfilling its various mandates under the law. In achieving
this balance, the agency has made an unprecedented effort to
maximize stakeholder input, but, Mr. Chairman, as with the
terms ``reasonable'' and ``prudent,'' we recognize that one can
never have enough stakeholder input for such an important
action to satisfy everyone.
The agency is prepared to work closely with stakeholders to
ensure the future research and management plans will improve
our ability to better evaluate fishery management alternatives
to minimize impacts on the Steller sea lion population and, of
course, on the fishery.
Thank you for the opportunity, and I will try to answer any
questions the Committee may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Rosenberg follows:]
STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW A. ROSENBERG, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR
FOR FISHERIES, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND
ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify before the Subcommittee today on the
science supporting NOAA Fisheries, recent Biological Opinion
and the conservation measures to ensure protection for the
endangered western population of Steller sea lions. I am Dr.
Andrew Rosenberg, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Fisheries.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
charged with and committed to the sustainable stewardship of
marine fisheries, as well as the protection and recovery of
endangered and threatened marine species. We at NOAA's National
Marine Fisheries Service recognize that this dual commitment
requires us to find a balance that ensures the protection of
species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) while
ensuring the optimal utilization of fisheries for the U.S.
fishing industry. In finding this balance, we must comply with
a number of legal requirements, including those of the ESA,
Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), and the
American Fisheries Act. Of particular concern to the
Subcommittee today are the recent management measures developed
with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in response
to our biological opinion to reduce the potential effects of
groundfish fisheries off Alaska, particularly the pollock
fisheries, on Steller sea lions. Meeting these various
requirements has been a complex task, as together they impose a
number of competing responsibilities that must be met within a
relatively short period of time. We believe we have fully
complied with all of our statutory responsibilities in managing
these fisheries, using the best scientific and commercial
information available in the process. Furthermore, we have done
this with a high level of public involvement for an ESA action,
and we have provided substantial flexibility in the
recommendations of the Biological Opinion to accommodate
fishery concerns. Both of these features of the action, we
believe, are innovative and helped us work through a very
contentious issue.
Requirements of the Endangered Species Act
The ESA requires that each Federal agency shall insure that
any action authorized, funded, or carried out by such agency is
not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any
endangered species or threatened species or result in the
destruction or adverse modification of their habitat. Under the
ESA, the term ``jeopardize the continued existence of'' means
to engage in an action that reasonably would be expected,
directly or indirectly, to reduce appreciably the likelihood of
both the survival and recovery of a listed species in the wild
by reducing the reproduction, numbers, or distribution of that
species. The term ``destruction or adverse modification'' means
a direct or indirect alteration that appreciably diminishes the
value of critical habitat for both the survival and recovery of
a listed species. Such alterations include, but are not limited
to, alterations adversely modifying any of those physical or
biological features that were the basis for determining the
habitat to be critical.
When Federal actions may result in an adverse effect,
either on these species or their habitat, the agency
responsible for the action must consult with either the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA Fisheries and develop
reasonable and prudent alternatives (RPAs) to minimize or
eliminate the adverse effect. NOAA Fisheries, as the agency
responsible for authorizing the pollock fisheries as well as
for protecting Steller sea lions, is both the ``action agency''
and the ``consulting'' agency in this case.
On December 3, 1998, NOAA Fisheries completed an ESA
Section 7 consultation on the pollock fisheries of the Gulf of
Alaska and Eastern Bering Sea, and the Atka mackerel fisheries
of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region following an
interactive process with the public and the North Pacific
Fishery Management Council. The consultation considered the
best scientific and commercial information available, including
input received during two public meetings and a North Pacific
Fishery Management Council meeting in the autumn of 1998 on
possible alternatives to current fishing practices that would
reduce the effects of the pollock fisheries on Steller sea
lions. That consultation was summarized in a Biological
Opinion, as directed by the ESA.
The Biological Opinion contained a description of the
proposed fishery actions, a review of the status of western
population of Steller sea lions, and an analysis of factors
that either may have or are known to have contributed to the 80
percent decline of the western population of Steller sea lions
over the past three to four decades. The Opinion recognized
that commercial sea lion harvests, subsistence harvests, and
incidental fisheries catch are known to have contributed to
this decline. The Opinion also recognized that intentional
shooting, ecosystem changes, killer whale predation, disease,
and pollutants also have contributed to the decline. For
example, considerable evidence developed by NOAA Fisheries and
other scientists indicates that significant oceanographic
changes have occurred in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska
ecosystems, with corresponding alteration of prey species
available to Steller sea lions. As a result, the environment's
carrying capacity for Steller sea lions may have been changed.
In short, a number of factors have contributed to the decline
of the western population of Steller sea lions.
However, the consultation NMFS conducted last year was
concerned with the factors contributing to the continued
decline of Steller sea lions, not the original cause of the
decline. During the consultation on the 1999 pollock and
mackerel fisheries, NMFS examined a number of phenomena that
might explain the continued decline of the Steller sea lion.
Direct and indirect interactions with fisheries are among those
factors which may continue to have a significant impact on the
western population of Steller sea lions. Our consultations
focused on the groundfish fisheries because these fisheries and
Steller sea lions target the same prey.
The potential for competition between the pollock and Atka
mackerel fisheries and the western population of Steller sea
lions is difficult to evaluate. The best available evidence
suggests that Steller sea lions are nutritionally stressed.
That evidence includes data on animal growth, condition,
reproduction, and survival (particularly of juvenile sea
lions). The evidence also indicates that pollock and Atka
mackerel are major prey for Steller sea lions in both the Gulf
of Alaska and the Bering Sea regions. In the majority of diet
studies conducted to date, pollock or Atka mackerel have been
the most frequently consumed prey.
The question, then, is whether the removal of potential
prey by the commercial pollock and Atka mackerel fisheries, as
proposed, could reduce the foraging success of Steller sea
lions and compromise growth, condition, reproduction, and even
survival of individuals to the point that the population
continues to decline or fails to recover. Scientific analyses
indicate that the pollock fisheries of the Gulf of Alaska and
Bering Sea overlap with foraging Steller sea lions in at least
four important ways.
First, the pollock fisheries and feeding Steller sea lions
overlap spatially; that is, they occur in the same place. Since
the mid to late 1980s, the proportion of the pollock harvested
from Steller sea lion critical habitat in the Eastern Bering
Sea has increased from 35 to 70 percent of the total Eastern
Bering Sea pollock catch. The proportion of the pollock
harvested from critical habitat in the Gulf of Alaska has
remained high during the same period, at 50 to 90 percent of
the total Gulf of Alaska pollock catch.
Second, the pollock fisheries overlap in time with feeding
Steller sea lions. Since the mid to late 1980s, large roe
fisheries have developed on pollock during the winter period,
when Steller sea lions (particularly juveniles and lactating
adult females) are thought to be particularly sensitive to
changes in availability of prey. In addition, these fisheries
have become concentrated in time, increasing the likelihood
that they result in localized depletions of prey. For example,
since 1990, the Bering Sea pollock fishery has become condensed
from about 10 months to less than 3 months.
Third, the pollock fisheries and foraging Steller sea lions
overlap in prey selection and prey size. As noted above,
pollock is a major prey for sea lions. Furthermore, both adult
and juvenile sea lions consume pollock of the same size as
those taken by the fisheries.
Fourth, the pollock fisheries and foraging Steller sea
lions overlap with respect to the depth of trawling and
foraging. While much remains to be learned about the diving
capabilities of sea lions, the available information is
sufficient to show that their diving patterns overlap with the
trawling depths of the fisheries. Furthermore, the pollock
resource also moves in the water column, from deeper levels in
the daytime to shallower depths at night.
Finally, analyses of prey biomass harvested from areas
important to Steller sea lions indicate that the fisheries may
remove 40 percent or more of the pollock available to Steller
sea lions during some seasons. Essentially, the problem is not
the total amount of pollock harvested from Alaska waters,
rather the disproportionate amount harvested from critical
habitat and the resultant potential for localized depletion.
This extensive removal of pollock from critical habitat,
combined with the evidence that sea lions are nutritionally
stressed, that pollock are important prey, and that fishing and
sea lion foraging overlap extensively, all indicate that the
fisheries are reasonably likely to compete with the western
population of Steller sea lions and significantly reduce their
available prey. Based on this information, the Biological
Opinion concluded that the pollock fisheries in the Bering Sea
and Gulf of Alaska, as proposed, are likely to jeopardize the
continued existence of the western population of Steller sea
lions and adversely modify its designated critical habitat.
Concerns about the Atka mackerel fishery were considered by
the Council early in 1998. The fishery had become concentrated
in both time and area, and evidence of resultant localized
depletion of Atka mackerel was observed. In June, 1998, the
Council recommended a regulatory amendment to spread the Atka
mackerel fishery harvest over time and space to reduce the
effects of competition between the Atka mackerel fishery and
Steller sea lions. The Biological Opinion concluded that
implementation of these conservation measures reduced the
effects of the Atka mackerel fishery sufficiently to avoid
jeopardy.
The Biological Opinion was based on the best available
scientific and commercial data, as analyzed by scientists both
inside and outside of our agency. These scientific data and
analyses were only part, but an important part, of the
Biological Opinion and resulting conclusions. The North Pacific
Fishery Management Council recently convened a review of these
data and analyses by a panel of internationally known experts
in marine mammal biology.
Development of a reasonable and prudent alternative with public
and Council input
Because Federal agencies cannot take actions that
jeopardize a listed species or adversely modify critical
habitat, the ESA requires that jeopardy and adverse
modification be avoided through development of a reasonable and
prudent alternative to the proposed action; in this case,
authorization of the pollock fisheries. Development of the RPA
was initiated in the fall of 1998, when the analyses of the
Biological Opinion indicated that conclusions of jeopardy and
adverse modification were likely. We drafted management
measures and solicited public and Council input to ensure that
the fisheries would be able to start in January 1999, as
planned.
Early analyses in the Biological Opinion indicated problems
with the spatial dispersion of the fisheries, their temporal
dispersion, and their potential to compete with sea lions in
the waters immediately adjacent to rookeries and haulouts. In
the fall of 1998, NOAA Fisheries staff began development of
RPAs that would increase spatial and temporal dispersion, and
protect prey resources around rookeries and haulouts. It should
be reiterated that changes in the total amount of pollock
harvest allowed were considered, but not deemed necessary.
In October 1998, public workshops were held in Seattle and
Anchorage. The purpose of these workshops was to enlist input
from the public on measures to avoid jeopardy and adverse
modification.
In November 1998, the RPA was further developed and
presented to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Again, input from the Council and from the public was solicited
on measures to avoid jeopardy and adverse modification.
In late November and early December 1998, NOAA Fisheries
developed RPA ``principles'' to be included in the Biological
Opinion, pending the final decision on jeopardy and adverse
modification. These principles established the objectives to be
met by the RPA as a framework, rather than specifying the exact
measures to achieve those objectives. This provided the Council
and the industry much greater flexibility in developing
solutions to this problem than is usual for ESA actions.
In December 1998, NOAA Fisheries took the framework RPA
principles in the final Biological Opinion to the Council to
seek their input on measures consistent with that framework
that would avoid jeopardy to Steller sea lions and adverse
modification of critical habitat. On December 13, 1998, the
Council voted to approve a motion containing a number of
conservation measures for the first half of the 1999 groundfish
fisheries.
On December 16, 1998, NOAA Fisheries accepted the Council
motion, with some modification, as part of the RPA. We also
recognized that additional measures would be required during
the latter half of the 1999 fisheries to avoid jeopardy and
adverse modification. These additional measures were discussed
with the Council at its February meeting. Again, the Council
and public were asked for input prior to the development of an
environmental assessment for the Steller sea lions conservation
measures needed for the latter half of 1999 and for the 2000
fisheries and beyond.
In April 1999, the Council was asked to review and release
a draft environmental assessment on Steller sea lion measures
so that final action could be taken in June 1999.
In summary, the RPA, as developed to date, disperses the
pollock fisheries in time and space, and protects sea lions
from competition in the waters adjacent to important rookeries
and haulouts. The goals of temporal dispersion were to protect
portions of the critical winter period by prohibiting fishing
from 1 November to 19 January, and to disperse the fisheries
during the remainder of the year to avoid large pulses of
fishing. The goals of spatial dispersion were to spread the
distribution of the catch in a manner that mirrored the actual
distribution of the pollock stocks and, where the stock
distribution is not known, place a cap on the amount of the
catch that could be taken from Steller sea lion critical
habitat. Zones within which pollock trawling is prohibited were
also established to fully protect sea lions (particularly
juveniles and lactating females) from the possibility of
competition for pollock in the waters adjacent to important
rookeries and haulouts. The combined set of RPA principles
outlined in the Biological Opinion were developed to achieve
these goals.
Related litigation
NOAA's management of the groundfish fisheries off Alaska is
the subject of litigation in a Federal court. In that case, a
number of environmental groups are challenging the
environmental impact statement prepared for the Alaska
groundfish fisheries, as well as the biological opinion
addressing the effects of the pollock and Atka mackerel
fisheries, and the biological opinion considering the effects
of the other Alaska groundfish fisheries on Steller sea lions.
Representatives of the groundfish fishing industry and Alaska
fishing communities have intervened in the case and filed cross
claims challenging, among other things, NMFS' emergency
regulations under the Magnuson-Stevens Act that implement the
reasonable and prudent alternatives identified in one of the
biological opinions. Oral argument on some of the issues in
this case was held on May 13th.
Steller sea lions and the American Fisheries Act
While the RPA was being developed, the American Fisheries
Act (AFA) became public law. The AFA has changed the structure
and nature of the pollock fishery in the Bering Sea. The AFA
has only been in effect since January 1999 and the full effects
of its measures on the western population of Steller sea lions
are not yet apparent. Based on the preliminary results, we are
cautiously optimistic that some provisions of the Act will
likely further our efforts to avoid jeopardy to the western
population of sea lions and adverse modification of its
critical habitat. In 1999, one sector of the pollock fleet, the
catcher-processors, was able to establish a fishing cooperative
which helped to avoid the ``race for fish,'' reduce the daily
catch rates, and better disperse the catch over a longer period
of time. These are preliminary results from the activities of
only one of the four fishery sectors fishing during the first
four months of 1999, but they are positive and encouraging. We
hope to see similar progress in the other sectors, given the
shift in allocation of pollock away from the catcher-processors
towards the inshore and Community Development Quota, or CDQ,
fleets. Our Alaska Region is working with the North Pacific
Fishery Management Council to facilitate the full
implementation of the AFA as soon as possible.
Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan
Our strategy for research and recovery of Steller sea lions
is described in the Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan (Recovery
Plan). The first version of the Recovery Plan was completed in
1992 by NMFS and the Steller Sea Lion Recovery Team. This
version provided important directions for research into the
causes of the decline and general management measures for
facilitating recovery. Considerable progress has been made
since 1992, and the Recovery Plan is now ready for revision.
The Recovery Team and NMFS have recently completed four peer-
review workshops on different elements of the Steller sea lion
research effort. The workshops and their recommendations will
be used to revise and update the Recovery Plan. The revision is
expected to be completed by the end of 1999.
The completion of the revised Recovery Plan is our most
urgent objective for management efforts related to Steller sea
lions. The revised Recovery Plan will not only update the
information on the status of the western and eastern
populations, but will also incorporate the extensive research
results obtained since 1992. In addition to direction for
future research, the Recovery Plan will incorporate explicit
management strategies to facilitate recovery of the species.
The Recovery Plan will guide and coordinate the research and
management activities of the multiple agencies involved with
Steller sea lion recovery efforts. Finally, the Recovery Plan
will also define the criteria needed to determine when the
eastern and western populations have recovered and can be
removed from the lists of threatened and endangered species.
General research direction and anticipated budget
Specific research topics or themes will be identified and
expanded during the revision of the Recovery Plan. Likely
research themes will include research on population abundance
and trends, life history, health foraging ecology, habitat,
fisheries interactions, and environmental effects. NOAA
Fisheries funding levels for Steller sea lion research in 1998
was $720,000. In 1999, NOAA Fisheries has a $590,000 base level
of funding, plus $850,000 for studies on the effectiveness of
current management measures, and an additional $234,000 for
recovery studies. When combined with other funding sources, the
total 1999 funding level for Steller sea lion research is
$3,604,000.
Summary
In summary, NOAA Fisheries is making an effort to strike a
balance between the needs of the Alaska groundfish fishery and
the need to protect Steller sea lions while fulfilling the
varying mandates of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, ESA, MMPA, and
the American Fisheries Act. To achieve this balance, we
considered the best available scientific information, and hold
numerous public meetings to discuss possible alternatives with
the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (, the fishing
industry, environmental organizations and the public. We have
used a flexible, innovative approach to meeting the mandates of
the ESA because of the complexity of the issue and the legal
mandates and because of the importance of the fishery. Future
research and management plans will improve our ability to
respond to our complex mandates, and will allow all
stakeholders to better evaluate possible fishery management
alternatives to minimize impacts on the western Steller sea
lion population.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
Subcommittee today. I am prepared to respond to questions
members of the Subcommittee may ask.
Mr. Saxton. Dr. Rosenberg, thank you very much for your
statement.
Ms. Wynne.
STATEMENT OF KATE WYNNE, MARINE MAMMAL SPECIALIST, ALASKA SEA
GRANT MARINE ADVISORY PROGRAM
Ms. Wynne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to comment on the adequacy of the National Marine
Fisheries Service's Steller sea lion research and management
programs and on how they might be better integrated. My
perspective is based on nearly 20 years of studying marine
mammals and their interactions with fisheries, often from the
deck of fishing boats, often working hand in hand with National
Marine Fisheries Service on research, advisory and outreach
projects, and usually, as here, in the midst of conflict.
The Steller sea lion recovery plan published by NMFS in
1992 clearly outlined research needs and a direction for the
NMFS' Steller sea lion research program. I believe NMFS'
scientists, directly and through collaborative studies, have
conscientiously followed this direction in seeking to answer
the question, ``why are Stellers declining and how can we help
them recover.'' I believe NMFS and other researchers have made
great strides toward understanding Steller sea lion biology and
ecology and new techniques and technology give me great hope
for future breakthroughs, but the causes for continued declines
remain unclear, and why is that?
The bulk of Steller sea lion research to date has focused
on assessing the existence and mechanisms of food limitation.
These are difficult animals and complex questions to study. The
environment is dynamic, (and as we know, it is changing) and
developing statistically reliable sample sizes is very time-
consuming. The research is challenging and understanding
develops slowly. So, after a decade of concerted effort, even
some fundamental information is incomplete and lacking.
These scientific shortcomings become painfully obvious when
they comprise the best available data used by sea lion managers
to make decisions that have such hefty social and economic
impact, decisions that are forced by uncertainty and by law to
be conservative and risk adverse.
Now, in the management arena, NMFS is being asked questions
that are related but very different from those addressed in the
recovery plan. They may require a very different research
approach. Rather than seeking ecosystem level mechanisms that
are limiting sea lion recovery, NMFS is being asked specific
management-related questions like do humans and sea lions
compete for the same prey, and what is critical habitat for
Steller sea lions.
This situation does beg for a review, not necessarily of
the science involved but of how NMFS as an agency can better
integrate the actions of their management and research
programs. The left hand and the right hand need to be better
coordinated.
A case in point was the establishment of protective no-
trawl zones around Steller sea lion rookeries in the early
1990s. A critical opportunity was lost when no experimental
design nor follow-up research was incorporated into that
action. Now, there is no way to assess the effectiveness of
that measure nor to predict the usefulness and value of
extending them further to protect haulouts.
I encourage NMFS to continue monitoring the sea lion
population and develop technology and studies that will refine
our understanding of foraging requirements and other critical
habitat needs of Steller sea lions. But I recommend that NMFS
encourage its scientists to work more directly with its marine
mammal and fisheries managers to design research that is
management-related and hypothesis-driven, to design management
actions as experiments, and to test the assumptions included so
we can learn as we go, and most importantly to assure there is
a means of measuring success built into every significant sea
lion protective measure that clearly identifies goals and
benchmarks so the efficacy of the action can be determined.
Involving stakeholders in the design of such testable
management actions perhaps in a manner modeled after the MMPA's
take reduction teams would enhance their acceptance and
utility, encourage constructive mitigation and reduce the need
for retrospective analyses such as today's.
Communication plays an indirect but critical role in
building trust and, ultimately, reaching Steller sea lion
research and management goals. Within NMFS and NOAA are gifted
communicators who could help develop informative sea lion
research updates and other means of increasing awareness and
understanding at the grass roots level.
These additional efforts will, however, require additional
funding. NMFS' scientists already compete for a shrinking piece
of the NOAA research budget pie. There are many high profile
and critical marine mammal fisheries issues nationwide,
including right whales and harbor porpoise in New England.
Increased demands on the National Marine Fisheries Service's
Steller sea lion research and management programs will,
therefore, require congressional support and commitment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wynne follows:]
STATEMENT OF KATE WYNNE, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF
ALASKA SEA GRANT MARINE ADVISORY PROGRAM
Preface
The endangered western stock of Steller sea lions continues
to decline but unlike most endangered species, the factors
initiating their decline and hindering their recovery remain
uncertain despite years of concerted study. This testimony is
presented, upon request, to address the adequacy of the
National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) Steller sea lion
research program and to comment on potential improvements and
expansion. More thorough reviews of NMFS' sea lion research
have been provided by independent reviewers, through a series
Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan workshops, and recently by the
North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
The perspective I provide herein is a product of nearly 20
years studying marine mammals and their interactions with
commercial fishermen--often with fishermen on their vessels,
often with NMFS in the field, often seeking understanding in a
commonly thorny conflict arena. The opinions expressed herein
are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of the
institution I represent. [A Disclosure Form summarizing my
professional experience and recent and proposed NMFS-supported
projects is appended to this document.]
Background
The Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan (SLRP) published by NMFS
in 1992 outlined research priorities and a clear direction for
NMFS' Steller sea lion research program. Beyond monitoring
population trends, the SLRP prioritized the research needed to
address the question: ``Why are Steller sea lions declining and
how can their recovery be encouraged?'' Although NMFS has
management authority for Steller sea lions throughout the U.S.,
they have shared responsibility for SLRP-related sea lion
research in Alaska with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
(ADFG). Additional Federal funding has supported Steller sea
lion research at the Alaska Sea Life Center, the North Pacific
Universities Marine Mammal Consortium, and numerous academic
institutions.
A number of sources of mortality were identified in SLRP as
known or potential contributors to the population's historic
decline but no single causative factor (``smoking gun'') has
been found to account for continued declines. Consequently, by
the mid-1990's, much of the research by NMFS and others focused
on seeking evidence to support a single, common hypothesis:
that food limitation (in prey quality, quantity, or diversity)
is reducing survival of juvenile Steller sea lions.
Adequacy of NMFS' science
Unlike El Nino-induced prey shortages, we are NOT seeing
classic evidence of acute food shortage in the western stock of
Steller sea lions (i.e. thousands of carcasses or starvelings
washing ashore). NMFS and other investigators therefore have
sought indicators of chronic nutritional stress and its
potential impact on the population including physiological
compromise detectable in blood parameters, growth and
reproductive rates, and foraging effort. By comparing sea lion
diet and condition over space (stable eastern stock vs
declining western stock) and time (pre-decline vs post-
decline), researchers have sought to elucidate key changes in
Steller sea lion habitat and determine the role of food
limitation in the continued decline. Despite this concerted
effort, evidence supporting the food limitation hypothesis
remains weak.
This has not been for lack of trying however. I believe
NMFS and others have conscientiously addressed the questions
they have asked. Our knowledge of Steller sea lion biology and
ecology has grown tremendously in the past decade. But until
recently, sea lion questions were asked in a broad ecosystem-
process context, as directed by the SLRP. By seeking sources of
continued decline, NMFS and others have asked a complex set of
questions where even the simplest components are logistically
difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to answer. Hampered by
these research challenges, even some seemingly fundamental
questions remain unanswered (e.g. What and where do sea lions
eat in the winter?) and the ``best available information'' in
those areas may be suboptimal or incomplete. Such data
limitations become particularly obvious and confounding when
they form the basis for management decisions of social and
economic significance.
But NMFS is now being asked very different questions.
Rather than questioning the mechanisms limiting sea lion
survival, NMFS is being asked specific management-related
questions: What direct and indirect impacts does a particular
fishery have on sea lions and/or their prey? Are humans
competing with or disrupting sea lion foraging behavior? What
IS critical in a sea lion's habitat? How do fish populations
respond to sea lion predation and human harvest? These are very
different from SLRP questions and may require a revised
research approach.
Integrate research and management
In many cases, data needed for sound management actions are
lacking because appropriate questions have not yet been asked.
This argues for broader integration of NMFS' Steller sea lion
management and research efforts. Research focused on specific
management-related, hypothesis-driven questions can be designed
to generate results with direct management application as well
as broader ecosystem insights. Although belated, NMFS' recent
steps to develop hypothesis-driven proposals for assessing the
impact of commercial fishing pressure on sea lion prey
distribution are a commendable move in this direction.
The efficient coordination of NMFS' research and management
efforts may be limited by NMFS' infrastructure and the vastly
different timelines upon which research and management programs
appear to operate. [There is often a multi-year lag in
procuring research funding whereas management issues are often
on shorter, more urgent schedules.] But the desirability of
such coordination is exemplified by NMFS' establishment of
protective buffer zones (trawl closure areas) around Steller
sea lion rookeries in the early 1990's. A critical opportunity
to study the effects of this management measure was lost when
no experimental design nor follow-up research was incorporated
into the buffer zone implementation. Consequently there has
been no way to directly assess the efficacy of this measure or
predict the efficacy of recently implemented trawl closures
around haulouts. Such studies could have also been designed to
shed light on sea lion habitat requirements and other trophic
interactions.
I recommend that NMFS' sea lion researchers work directly
with managers to (1) design management actions as experiments
and (2) develop a measure of success for all significant sea
lion-protective measures implemented: identify goals and
benchmarks so the efficacy of the action can be monitored.
In addition, I believe stakeholder involvement in the
design of such testable management actions may increase their
utility and reduce the need for retrospective negotiations or
critiques of assumptions and science involved. ``Take Reduction
Teams'' (TRTs), authorized under the MMPA to develop plans for
reducing incidental fishing mortality of strategic stocks, may
provide a model for addressing specific sea lion-fishery
interactions. Like TRTs, this team could be comprised of
biologists and stakeholder representatives, have a limited
focus and tight timeline, and develop with NMFS a fishery-
specific research plan with clear goals and benchmarks for
success. Unlike TRTS, this proposed team would address
competitive or indirect interactions between sea lions and
fisheries, rather than incidental take.
Communication
The fact this hearing is being held demonstrates that
Steller sea lion problems go beyond science and that NMFS
should make a concerted effort to improve communications with
the public. Misunderstanding and confusion about NMFS' goals
has spawned grassroot-level mistrust and resistance to
management actions and led to counterproductive expenditures of
time and money. I believe we all see Steller sea lions in
crisis and share common goals for their recovery--albeit for
different reasons (biological, social or economic). The
following NOAA communication efforts are suggested as steps to
enhance public awareness, understanding and cooperation.
NOAA's newly appointed Fishery Ombudsman will likely
encourage upper level coordination of marine mammal and
fisheries issues.
Outreach at local level: NMFS can facilitate public
access to research results through direct mailings of NOAA Tech
Memos to affected AK coastal community libraries, and funding
should be sought to support NOAA development of a semi-annual
newsletter highlighting sea lion research plans and results by
NMFS and other researchers.
Alternate Peer Review: consider requesting the Alaska
Scientific Review Group (ASRG) to formally review the design
and goals of proposed NMFS' sea lion studies. Currently NMFS
presents the ASRG with annual updates on funded sea lion
research plans and specific sea lion study results upon request
but does not request study plan review.
Comments on NMFS Steller Sea Lion Research
Kate Wynne, Research Associate Professor
University of Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program
Research by NMFS and others has made great strides toward
understanding Steller sea lion biology and ecology but cause(s)
of continued declines remain unclear.
The bulk of Steller sea lion research effort this decade
has focused on assessing the existence and mechanisms of
potential food limitation. The questions and animals are
difficult to study and many questions fundamental to management
needs remain unanswered.
Research based solely on this single hypothesis may no
longer be justified.
Recommendations: NMFS researchers should work more closely
with the agency's fish and sea lion managers to (1) design
management-related, hypothesis-driven sea lion research, (2)
design management actions as experiments and (3) develop a
measure of success for all significant sea lion-protective
measures implemented, identifying goals and benchmarks so the
efficacy of the action can be monitored.
Communication plays an indirect but critical role in
affecting Steller sea lion research and management goals. NMFS
can and should encourage increased awareness and understanding
of their research and management goals at the grass roots level
and higher.
Mr. Young. [presiding.] Thank you, Kate. Dr. Lavigne.
STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID LAVIGNE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
INTERNATIONAL MARINE MAMMAL ASSOCIATION
Dr. Lavigne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, members
of the Subcommittee, first, thank you for the invitation to
appear before you today. I would like to begin by providing you
with a bit of personal background in the history of my
involvement in the Steller sea lion issue.
I am the Executive Director of the International Marine
Mammal Association, a not-for-profit organization concerned
with the conservation of marine mammals. I am also an adjunct
professor in the Department of Zoology, University of Guelph,
where I held a faculty position from 1973 through 1996. I am a
member of IUCN Seal Specialist Group, and I serve on the
Pinniped Fishery Interaction Task Force on the Sea Lion/
Steelhead Conflict at Ballard Locks.
My involvement in the Steller sea lion issue began in March
of 1991 when I was invited to participate in the Is it Food?
workshop held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Later that
year I submitted an affidavit in the 1991 sea lion litigation.
At that time, NMFS acknowledged that the commercial pollock
fishery may adversely affect Steller sea lions, but concluded
that no harm was likely because the causal connection had not
been definitively proven. I argued that NMFS' conclusion was
scientifically unjustified because the process of science does
not and cannot prove hypotheses. Rather, it attempts to reject
them.
The pollock fisheries continued between 1991 and 1998, and
in 1997, as we all know, the status of the western population
of Steller sea lions was upgraded to endangered. In March of
1999 the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund asked me to review
materials related to Steller sea lions, including the latest
biological opinion, and last month I was invited to make a
presentation before the Northwest Fishery Management Council's
panel of independent scientists in Seattle.
I will now address briefly some of the scientific issues
about which you have asked witnesses to testify. One, the
biological opinion. In my opinion, the best available
scientific and commercial data support a conclusion that the
pollock fisheries compete with the western population of sea
lions. This does not mean, I must emphasize, that such
competition has been demonstrated conclusively. Rather, it
means that the data and analyses reasonably support the
conclusion that the pollock fisheries are likely to jeopardize
the continued existence of the endangered western population of
Steller sea lions and adversely modify its habitat.
Two, the reasonable and prudent alternatives. Here, I
diverge from the views expressed in the biological opinion. In
my opinion, the proposed RPAs are unlikely to avoid jeopardy
and adverse habitat modification for the endangered Steller sea
lions because they do not remedy the factors that led NMFS to
reach its conclusions of jeopardy and adverse modification.
Three, the adequacy of NMFS' scientific research program.
It is my impression that NMFS' scientists have tried to devise
the best possible research program within the limits of the
available funding, given the difficulties of working with a
threatened and subsequently endangered species and the
logistical realities of working on Steller sea lions in their
remote northern terrestrial and marine environments.
I also suspect that they would be the first to admit that
the program could have been better if they had more research
funding and additional human resources, and I would agree with
such an assessment.
How could NMFS improve or expand its current research
program? Well, there are a number of areas where additional
scientific information is required to improve the basis for
making future determinations on the likely effects of the
pollock fishery on the endangered Steller sea lions. These
include, one, as the review panel noted, there is a need for
additional research to delineate better the critical habitat of
Steller sea lions.
There is also a need, I feel, to obtain a better
understanding of the nature of the, quote, harsh winter period,
and its potential consequences for Steller sea lions.
We also need to obtain data on the abundance of pollock in
specific areas, particularly in sea lion critical habitat and
at specific times, before, during and after commercial fishing
in an area to better understand the extent to which the
fisheries may cause local depletion of pollock and over what
period of time.
And finally, four, I think we need to take a more
experimental approach to fishing to really test the hypothesis
that the pollock fishery competes with the endangered Steller
sea lion.
I would like to end my statement with one additional
comment. The available scientific information comes in a
variety of forms. These include peer-reviewed primary
scientific literature published in independent journals, the
so-called grey literature, government reports and the like,
reports from meetings, unpublished reports and anecdotal
accounts. There is a tendency, particularly among non-
scientists and the media, to give equal weight to claims
arising from all of these sources. Scientists, on the other
hand, who are or should be skeptical by their very nature will
instinctively treat the information in the various sources
above with increasing vigilance as they proceed from the peer-
reviewed literature at one end of the spectrum to anecdotal
reports at the other.
It may be of some use to your Committee to apply a similar
approach in evaluating the scientific information presented to
you. This is important, I think, because some of the apparent
scientific controversy on this issue has been generated by
unpublished and anecdotal information which has been introduced
into the scientific debate in unconventional ways.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lavigne follows:]
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Mr. Young. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Marks.
STATEMENT OF RICK MARKS, STELLER SEA LION CAUCUS
Mr. Marks. Mr. Chairman, when you drop that gavel today and
we all go home, 20 Alaskans will have traveled 80,000 miles and
spent 20,000 of their own dollars to come here and let this
Committee know that this is a crisis situation in Alaska. These
Alaskans are members of the Steller Sea Lion Caucus, which
includes Unalaska, Akutan, Aleutians East Borough, False Pass,
King Cove, Kodiak, Kodiak Island Borough and Sand Point. These
communities, which are in closest proximity to Steller sea lion
haulouts and rookeries, are heavily dependent on Bering Sea and
Gulf of Alaska and other groundfish fisheries for employment
and for municipal tax revenues.
I would like to preface my remarks by telling you that
recently we have had some very good discussions with the
National Marine Fisheries Service regarding research. There is
a scientist in Kodiak right now working with our folks and that
we will participate proactively with the agency to develop a
research program.
However, Mr. Chairman, I am here to tell you on behalf of
the caucus that the Steller sea lion management process has
broken, and I am going to tell you why, but first, I will tell
you what the council thinks about it, and I quote, ``there is
considerable scientific uncertainty regarding the relationships
between pollock fisheries and the western population of the
Steller sea lions. The uncertainty has placed the industry at
risk and forced the council to react to ESA concerns in a very
compressed time frame and make critical decisions based on
incomplete and conflicting data. This is not acceptable.'' That
is from the council's December meeting.
Steller sea lion conservation measures are implemented as
amendments to council-managed FMPs. The council and the public
should have had full access through the Magnuson-Stevens Act
public participation process. Unfortunately, this did not occur
properly, and I am going to tell you why.
Greenpeace, et al., filed against the Secretary on April
15th. NMFS was on notice for at least six months that they were
in a dogfight with the environmental industry. However, at the
October council meeting the science and statistical committee
minutes did not have any reference to the Steller sea lion
issue. Clearly, as late as October, the scientific arm of the
council never had any clue it was going to be playing a role in
such a divisive and time-sensitive issue.
The draft biological opinion was dated October 22nd, and
that already included RPAs directed only at the pollock trawl
fishery before any substantive council or public consideration
and in advance of the formal jeopardy finding. Since the RPAs
are only required in cases of jeopardy, the agency had
predetermined a condition of jeopardy and predetermined that
pollock trawling was the sole cause of the problem. The council
was informed by NMFS at the November meeting that it would be
required to address the RPAs at the December meeting. However,
NMFS did not provide the 200-plus page biological opinion until
December 3rd, leaving just three days before the start of the
council meeting and no time for a substantive review of the
document by anyone, in particular the public.
This is clear in that the SSC stated at the December
meeting, quote, ``The process has hampered the SSC's ability to
thoroughly review the document, and although the SSC was
requested to comment on appropriate actions, we were not
presented with information to complete such a task and there is
an inadequate understanding of the roles of the council, the
public, the SSC and in the ESA legal process.''
Despite the fact that the agency had six months advance
notice, mitigation measures were still implemented under an
intolerable time frame as emergency regulations despite the
council having no scientific information on which to base their
decisions and that the agency has not provided any indication
in the fact that the situation was any different from any other
years when no jeopardy determinations were made. Clearly the
lawsuit was both the difference and the emergency, and to wait
six months to do anything suggests that there was not going to
be an open process to include anyone.
In addition, the only formal conduit for constituent
participation is the Steller sea lion recovery team. NMFS'
staff informed the advisory panel at the December council
meeting that the recovery team was not consulted at all in the
development or implementation of the biological opinion or the
RPAs.
I would like to comment to Dr. Rosenberg's point about the
independent review substantiating the agency position. I would
like to read, the independent review also includes a few other
things, which I will quote, ``The relative importance of
environmental changes in carrying capacity versus the effects
of commercial pollock fisheries in the BSAI, in the Gulf of
Alaska on hypothesized food shortages to Steller sea lions is
unknown.'' Ongoing, ``It is not possible to know if RPAs
specified in the opinion will significantly promote the
recovery of the western stock of Steller sea lions,'' and
finally, ``high priority should be given to research.'' But
here's the nut, Mr. Chairman, we don't have a research program
and for nearly a decade we have not had one, and we are no
closer to Steller sea lion recovery.
To make matters worse the agency has proposed a $1 million
net reduction in Steller sea lion funding for the year 2000.
That money was being used to deal with energetics, foraging
dynamics and Steller sea lion/killer whale interactions. That
is what that money was going to be for. Clearly, we have got a
problem, and this process continuing will continue to make the
agency vulnerable to ESA-driven lawsuits and the industry to
sudden untested restrictions.
The Greenpeace staff has already informed the SSC and the
public at the December council meeting that pollock-style
litigation on Atka mackerel and Pacific cod are next up on the
hit parade.
I will conclude, Mr. Chairman, Steller Sea Lion Caucus
submits that there is a stronger correlation between
environmental lawsuits and trawling restrictions than there is
between Steller sea lions and commercial fishing. The only way
to insulate the agency in the industry from economy-trashing
lawsuits is for Congress to build accountability into a
scientific, administrative and stakeholder process, and this is
how we can do it.
Formalizing the agency Steller sea lion research program
which incorporates a peer review. It requires annual reporting
of progress and research prioritization. We can also formalize
and fund a peer-reviewed independent Steller sea lion research
program based in Alaska that can test all hypotheses, not just
those of the agency's liking.
We can create and fund a Steller sea lion position at the
council, specifically designated to work cooperatively with the
agency and the public to ensure efficient communication and
development of an EIS process whereby new information is
continually rolled into the council's EIS process.
We can use this year's MMPA reauthorization to implement a
take reduction team-style program for Steller sea lions in
Alaska. We can ensure that the agency is accountable and
responsive to Secretarial Order #3206 with respect to native
tribal entities, and we can also require the agency to
reconstitute and reinvigorate the Steller sea lion recovery
team.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Steller Sea Lion Caucus, I
thank you very much for that opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marks follows:]
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Mr. Young. Thank you, Mr. Marks. I want to thank the panel.
This is an excellent panel. Mr. Hansen, do you have any
questions?
Mr. Hansen. No, Mr. Chairman, I don't have any questions.
Mr. Young. I will have some questions. Don't act so
surprised. Because I came in late, I thought I would give you
the first opportunity. Mr. Gilchrest?
Mr. Gilchrest. I don't mind going.
Mr. Young. Go right ahead.
Mr. Gilchrest. It probably would help if I went after you,
Mr. Chairman, but I guess a couple of basic questions. Do sea
lions or juvenile sea lions eat pollock? I guess, does
everybody agree that they eat pollock?
Ms. Wynne. At different times of the year, yes.
Mr. Gilchrest. Everybody agrees that they eat pollock, and
are they an important source of nutrients for their diet, a
major source of nutrients? It seems that some people up here
disagree how important the pollock are to the sea lions, and I
guess NMFS had decided that they are an important source so
there needs to be a reduction in the catch or some type of
buffer between where the sea lions are and where the pollock
are, and that is the disagreement that Mr. Marks has with NMFS.
Dr. Rosenberg. If I may, Congressman, it is clear that sea
lions eat pollock. It also is clear that pollock is the most
important prey item currently for sea lions. We are not
maintaining that there needs to be a reduction in pollock
fishing but that that fishing needs to be spread out in time
and space so that it does not overlap with sea lion feeding
areas quite so much as it currently does.
Mr. Gilchrest. How would that impact the fishermen?
Dr. Rosenberg. Well, that, of course, is the difficult and
controversial part. It impacts different types of fishermen in
Alaska in different ways. In many cases, the impact, which is--
well, in all cases, the impact is economic, although in some
cases it relates to safety because it may require fishermen to
either stay at sea longer or to move to additional areas. That
is of great concern certainly in the industry and of great
concern to us.
What we are trying to do and believe that we have done for
the first season within Alaska, the first six months of the
year, is to accomplish those goals but still allow the catch to
be taken in an economic fashion, and that is our understanding
of the progress of the first season and not to increase,
certainly not to increase risk to fishermen by spreading it out
in as reasonable a way as we can.
Mr. Gilchrest. If I could just get to Mr. Pereyra.
Dr. Pereyra. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gilchrest. Did you call me Mr. Chairman? That might be
the future, I guess. Not for a while, Don.
Mr. Pereyra, what part of Mr. Rosenberg's statement will
you disagree with?
Dr. Pereyra. Well, I think I can't disagree with the
statement in that portion of it but I don't think it tells the
whole story. If you go back in time and even the NMFS' data
will show that small pelagic schooling species, like smelt,
herring and capelin and so forth, back in the early seventies
and so forth, were the principal diet of the Steller sea lions
and that----
Mr. Gilchrest. Why are they not?
Dr. Pereyra. Now, we find them eating pollock. We also find
them----
Mr. Gilchrest. Why are they eating pollock now instead of
the others?
Dr. Pereyra. It is the only thing that is left.
Mr. Gilchrest. Why is pollock the only thing that is left?
Dr. Pereyra. Because of this regime shift which occurred
back in the seventies. I mean, this seems to be one of the
hypotheses that has been put forward.
Mr. Gilchrest. What do you mean regime shift?
Dr. Pereyra. Well, the Aleutian low pressure system which
tends to dominate the circulation pattern of the north Pacific
moved, and that caused the temperature regime in the Bering Sea
to become much warmer. It also changed the current patterns,
and that is looked upon as being one of the influencing
factors, along with the elimination of many of the apex
predators, like whales, for example. Over 75,000 whales were
taken out of the north Pacific, also, and those factors have
changed the actual composition of the resources which were
available for Steller sea lions and it is sort of similar if
you had elk eating----
Mr. Gilchrest. The Steller sea lions didn't move, though?
Dr. Pereyra. No. Steller sea lions are a land mammal, so
they are sort of restricted to the land, and that is one of the
problems we face. We don't have a really, what I would say a
good picture as to what the causative factors are here, and
just because they are eating pollock today doesn't necessarily
mean that, in fact, we have a cause and effect relationship.
The other thing which I think the NMFS' data shows is that
the size spectrum of pollock which the juveniles are consuming
tends to be smaller than those which are found in the
commercial fishery. Also, the smaller pollock tend to be higher
up in the water column than where the commercial fishery is
prosecuted.
So you have a natural separation just by the way in which
the different sizes of pollock are distributed. If pollock was
really and the fishery were really interacting, we would be
having a serious problem with the pollock fishery intercepting
Steller sea lions in our nets and we don't. The data shows that
we don't, and we have observers out on our boats. So that is--I
don't know if that is satisfactory.
Mr. Gilchrest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Young. Thank you. You can ask other questions down the
line. You all right? Okay.
Dr. Rosenberg, your testimony implied that the budget for
Steller sea lions research actually increases in fiscal year
2000. Mr. Marks says it decreases by $1 million. Where are we
on the NMFS' study program of good science?
Dr. Rosenberg. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry if I gave the
impression that the request increases in the year 2000. There
has been a substantial increase from '97 to '98 and from '98 to
'99 in Steller sea lion research. For 2000 the request is lower
in fact, not the agency's request, I would have to say the
President's request of course because there are many competing
interests. The agency has talked with the council and with the
recovery team, and we have quite a long list of research we
would like to do, and I think the figure was used before of a
$10 million research program. That comes from the discussions
we have had with the recovery team and with the council. We can
certainly identify $10 million worth of projects, but in the
overall competing priorities within the budget, the President's
request does include a decrease in the year 2000. Not far----
Mr. Young. Specifically for Steller sea lions?
Dr. Rosenberg. In terms of line items, specifically for
Steller sea lions.
Mr. Young. But this is the most crucial area we are dealing
with right now under NMFS; is that correct?
Dr. Rosenberg. It is a very important area. There is
obviously many important areas.
Mr. Young. If we are to give you some money, you are going
to go forth with the study or should we give it to Kate?
Dr. Rosenberg. In fact, Mr. Chairman, we do give money to
Kate because she does extremely good research. Currently, as
does the State, we would go forward with research programs
cooperatively with the State, the Sea Life Center, the North
Pacific Marine Mammal Consortium if we have the opportunity to
do so. That depends on the resources available to us in
addition to our own program, of course.
Mr. Young. My concern, and I will get back to a couple of
others here, but NMFS made 39 determinations, 39 of them,
Bering Sea, Aleutian Island, Gulf of Alaska, pollock fisheries
does not cause jeopardy to the Steller sea lion's population.
December 1998 NMFS reversed course about 100 percent and made a
jeopardy finding that BS and AI and Gulf of Alaska pollock
fisheries do cause jeopardy. Now what information did you base
that on it was different prior to 1998 because you don't have
the science to do that.
Dr. Rosenberg. Actually, earlier in the year, in 1998, at
the beginning of the year, in our consultation then, we
indicated that there was new information related to continuing
decline of the population and, in fact, overlap of feeding
areas and fishing areas and that it clearly was cause for
concern and that we would continue to work on that. In
addition--so that was at the beginning of the year. It was not
in--well before October of 1998.
In addition to that, we were engaged in a consultation on
the Atka mackerel fishery which the council responded to by
providing measures to spread out the fishery, exactly the same
kinds of things we are talking about for pollock, much earlier
in the year, and we had been discussing the changes in the
Steller sea lion population that had occurred which were causes
for concern well before October '98.
So, yes, we did believe that prior to that time that the
measures we had in place were working but there was clear
evidence in late '97 or early '98 that the decline was
continuing and that we needed to try to find some other means
of arresting that decline and ultimately reversing it.
Mr. Young. Well, I have a letter here October 1998 that
says in conjunction with the listing chase, NMFS indicated it
was taking steps to reassess the effectiveness of existing
protective measures. Given the current understanding of sea
wolf/fishery prey interactions, additional research is
warranted prior to establishing revised management actions.
Dr. Rosenberg. Mr. Chairman, I believe you are referring to
a Marine Mammal Protection Act report. I would certainly say
that it is correct that we would like to have additional
research. In fact, I would probably have to return my Ph.D. if
I didn't always say at the end of every discussion that I would
like to have more research and better information. We certainly
believe that that is an important thing to do, but under the
Endangered Species Act we don't feel that we have the ability
to simply wait for that conclusive research. The standard we
are working to is likely to jeopardize the continued existence,
and the information we have at hand as validated by the peer
review panel indicates that we are likely to jeopardize the
continued existence of this stock.
Mr. Young. Of course, you and I have a great difference of
opinion on that, and, number one, I don't believe NMFS right
now is on my blacklist, if you want to know the truth, because
you are supposed to be an agency that promotes, advises and
maintains a single yield of fisheries. Now you say you are
implementing the Endangered Species Act, but you are doing it
without information scientific, and a number of Steller sea
lions, whoever established how many should be there I don't
know, and what basis it was established on. What bothers me
also, your research has never taken consideration of predator
problems, and doctor, thank you for bringing that up. You know,
every time there is a decrease in species, NMFS says it is the
fault of the fishermen. Now, you cannot convince me of that.
Not only are there whales that occur in this, there are other
factors that could be possibly part of the problem. Now you are
affecting the great many people's lives with danger and, if my
information is correct, in 1990 we set aside restricted areas
and no one has done any research in seeing where that has
improved the sea lion population. Now, if you haven't studied
that, how do you know what you are imposing, and the doctor
just explained it very carefully, most of what the sea lions
consume are at a different level and we have no interdiction or
bycatch of sea lions by the pollock fisheries. So what do you
base this on that this causes the problem, the pollock fishery
causes the problem in the decline of sea lions, when you
haven't studied the areas you set aside in 1990? That was nine
years ago.
Dr. Rosenberg. Mr. Chairman, you indicated that I couldn't
convince you so I am not sure that I should try.
Mr. Young. You can try because you are paid for it.
Dr. Rosenberg. Okay. In that case I would like to try.
Mr. Young. All right.
Dr. Rosenberg. First of all, I disagree with the assertion
that we have not looked at the measures we have in place. We
have certainly continued to do pub and nonpub surveys in those
rookery areas. We have done feeding studies in those rookery
areas. We have done designs for the kinds of experiments that
people would like to do which are extremely difficult to do;
that is, to assign to a particular protection area exactly how
much protection it provides to the population as a whole. We
have done tagging studies or, if you like, tracking methods to
monitor trends in individuals for those protected areas and at
haulout sites and rookeries. So we have done an extensive
series of studies of what is going on within the rookery areas,
those areas that we are protecting.
In addition to that, we have monitored the population,
which is the ultimate measure of whether those protection areas
are sufficient. I would say that it is pretty clear that they
are not sufficient because the population is declining, but
that does not mean in any sense that they are either
unimportant or ineffective. We certainly would think that the
population would have declined much more than it did if we did
not have the existing protection measures in place around
rookeries and haulouts.
Mr. Young. Let me go back to the comment of Dr. Pereyra, is
it right, the comment where there has been no interdiction of
sea lions during pollock fishery. Now, where is the scientific
information available that says the pollock fishery affects the
sea lion? Apparently, there is availability of fish, you let
them catch the quota, the quota is out there, and my
information is there is a huge amount of fish with no decline
in the population of pollock. Now, how can you relate the
theory that the fishery is causing the decline? Have you
considered other predators, not only the whales, but others
maybe that affect the fish stock itself being part of the
problem? If you are not catching them in the nets, you are not
disturbing them by the vessels, where do you get your
correlation that the fishing is a problem?
Dr. Rosenberg. While I would agree we are not currently
catching sea lions in the nets, I believe historically there
was a much larger incidental take and a direct take of sea
lions. However, it is very clear and there is ample sighting
evidence that the fishery is operating in areas where sea lions
feed. I don't agree with Dr. Pereyra that the depth or size
composition is different for the sea lions as it is for the
fishery. I don't agree that that is interpretation of our data
and our biological opinion doesn't agree with that. So we have
no question that there is an overlap in terms of the areas and
an increasing overlap because the fishery has increasingly
moved into the critical habitat area, such that now in recent
years, until this year, up to 70 percent of the catch was taken
within the critical habitat area, which was defined by where
sea lions feed and live.
So there is a clear relationship spatially between where
the fishery operates and where the sea lions are feeding and
growing. There also is very clear information that indicates
that the dominant prey item for sea lions is pollock currently.
It may well be true that in the past they fed on other kinds of
fish that were more available at the time. Those fish are not
available to them now. They are currently feeding on pollock.
Mr. Young. How many square miles does that critical habitat
encompass?
Dr. Rosenberg. I don't know that number off the top of my
head.
Mr. Young. Is that some more of that scientific information
you used to make this decision?
Dr. Rosenberg. Well, I certainly can get you the number. I
am afraid I just don't know it off the top of my head, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Young. I have this deep concern in this issue, and I am
going to try to convince your agency and the Congress to see if
we can't have more true science involved because I don't think
you have the true science. I mean, it is not your fault, but
you are making decisions that it does have a great effect upon,
not only individuals, but also maybe the fishery itself, as the
doctor has mentioned.
I think that, you know, Kate has got a good operation in
Kodiak. I don't see any reason why there can't be some more
activities in that arena. I also don't think you can divorce
the seal problem away from the sea lions problem. They are
predators. No study has been put into that. I think there is a
great deal--and your enthusiasm to respond to certain interest
groups and not using sound science has put into question the
National Marine Fisheries Service.
I have been with this outfit for 26 years, and I have
slowly seen a decline of this branch and not really, I think,
fulfilling their obligation to the fisheries. You know why you
were created. If you go back to the history of it, you might
have a better understanding of why you are sitting at that
table and I do believe that the fishing and the sea lions are
compatible, but I don't think in the case that has been
presented to us has been done scientifically.
Mr. Gilchrest and I will always agree that good science
should be the only thing we rely upon. We don't see good
science especially for cutting back on a million dollars out of
this year's budget. That is probably--you know, like I say, if
we can, we are going to try to give the money back to you or
somebody else.
Mr. Saxton, do you have any questions? Mr. Marks, you want
to comment on this?
Mr. Marks. I have been sitting over here very patiently.
Mr. Young. Well, you are supposed to appear agitated and
not patiently. You got to be jumpy a little.
Mr. Saxton. Just do like the does.
Mr. Marks. I think you need to be an Alaskan to do that.
If I may comment to Dr. Rosenberg's comment about
establishing a correlation between fishing and sea lions, it is
important to understand that the Steller sea lion decline first
started in the mid-seventies and that was concurrent with this
regime shift we are speaking of where we saw the system shift
from a system dominated by herring, capelin, sand lance to a
pollock-dominated system. The near shore fishery that Dr.
Rosenberg is talking about in the quote, ``critical area''
unquote, did not really start until perhaps into the mid-
eighties. So we have already seen the Steller sea lion decline
start even when there was just trace amounts of fish being
taken in the critical habitat. So the very basis of this
causation we question significantly.
Additionally, if you look at the trend data for the
populations, in the eastern area where arguably most of the
concentrated fishing is occurring, Steller sea lion populations
are actually doing the best. If you look in the western where
the fishery is least concentrated, Steller sea lions are doing
the worst. So we still don't see this strong correlation, and
the agency has admitted in some of their documentation the
correlation is not there but we just have to be cautious, and
we think this might work, so there we go, and that is a big
concern to us.
If I might add to Mr. Gilchrest's question, I was trying to
get to it before, he was talking about do sea lions eat
pollock. Certainly they do. However, if you look back into the
mid-seventies prior to this regime shift 32 percent of their
diet was pollock. Herring and sand lance and capelins, small
oily fish was 61 percent of their diet during this same period.
So they were definitely perhaps preferring, for lack of a
better word, to eat that particular type of oily fish.
After the regime shift, '90 to '93, 85 percent of the diet
is pollock and only 18 percent is herring, capelin and sand
lance. So we have seen this major shift in what is going on
with what is available to sea lions. This is one of the
alternative hypotheses that we have not been able to get anyone
to look at, that is the appropriate versus the available prey.
Is a pollock-dominated system the best thing for Steller sea
lions? We are not certain that it is.
With respect to the diet overlap, the agency has some
information that indicates there may be some partial overlap
between what juvenile sea lions eat and what the fishery takes.
However, it doesn't necessarily automatically mean that that is
a bad thing. Someone up front commented there is plenty of
pollock out there, and there is. If there wasn't, you would see
a competitive exclusion where sea lions and fisherman would be
taking completely different pollock because they would be
competing and that would force that, but there is no
competitive exclusion because there seems to be enough pollock
for everybody.
So there is different ways to look at this. The fact we
haven't tested these alternative hypotheses is what is really
frosting our hind parts.
Mr. Young. Would it be possible that the nutritionally-
stressed sea lion, although his stomach can be full, can't
really be as strong or as well as he would with a fatter type
fish? Is that possible? I mean, just because he is eating lots
of pollock and apparently there isn't interference there, is
the pollock so lacking in nutritional value that it can stress
the sea lion?
Ms. Wynne. Well, as I am sure you know, there are some
preliminary studies that have been going on with captive
animals--and are continuing now--to study the dietary
components and nutritional value of different prey items and
the effect on the sea lions. Obviously, you are going to have
to eat more, probably eat more pollock to get the same fat in
your system as you would herring.
I guess to elaborate a little bit on the discussion that
has gone on before here, the questions that everyone's asking
right here are huge, and to actually determine whether there is
competition going on is a tremendous investment of time and
money, and you may never get there. I would suggest that rather
than belaboring the question of has the environment changed or
did we as humans change something, that you pick up more
specific smaller questions, something that, as my testimony
suggested, is a management-driven question that you can bite
off a small chunk off and chew on, get an answer and that
answer may help you figure out what is going on in the big
system, but it is a moving target and what happens----
Mr. Young. The reason for concern, of course you are well
aware of it. You are in Kodiak. The concern here is the impact
upon the Aleutians Borough, the small communities, the
fishermen themselves and the danger they risk taking because of
these new buffer zones being proposed and then no one has
proved the existing buffer zones work. The concern I have, we
bite a little piece of that apple, which I agree with you it
doesn't help those communities, it doesn't help those fisherman
that face those high seas, and we may be doing something that
we think is correct but doesn't solve the problem we are faced
with, and in the meantime I am being honest with you, I haven't
found a Steller sea lion that votes for me yet. If you give me
some, I might have a different attitude, but I am just saying
that it is important that we, in our enthusiasm, do what is
under the law and under the emotionalism of the Steller sea
lion to look at the aspect why this problem occurs without
sacrificing the human factor, too. That is my job, and I hope
NMFS understands my interest in this, too, but to do it just
because to say I got to do it, we are using the best science
available, which I am going to eliminate before I get out of
this job. Best science available is the weakest crutch that you
possibly can use. It should be the best science, not what is
available, the best science.
So that is really where I am coming from, and I am rambling
now, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for that. I got the gavel.
Ms. Wynne. I agree with you entirely. My point is, if you
look at the entire Bering Sea and try to quantify the changes
that have gone on and how that might have affected Steller sea
lions, you will never get to those points that you are saying
the communities need to know. If you start at the bottom and
work up towards those questions, you can address some of those
questions. If you look at a specifically small area
intensively, you might get some answers. One of the problems
and most basic things we don't know about Steller sea lions is
what they eat year round, every month of the year, in different
areas and how that has changed. We have little snapshots
because we have spread our effort over a huge area, and my
contention would be that if you take a smaller piece of the
picture, focus on it, get more complete information on a small
scale, have directed management-oriented questions that you
have from your constituents about the habitat use of those
animals in a certain area, you will get those answers, plus you
will have one piece of a huge puzzle that may take years----
Mr. Young. In the meantime I have to make sure that those
communities have to survive.
Ms. Wynne. Absolutely.
Mr. Young. Not at their cost and that is going to be the
question.
Mr. Gilchrest.
Mr. Gilchrest. Just a quick question for Ms. Wynne. Do you
have a place that should be studied now to do what you are
saying should be done, and would you agree or disagree with
NMFS' management plan doing the process of that study?
Ms. Wynne. Well, obviously I have a bias. I could tell you
what that is. I am not sure which part of NMFS' management plan
you are asking me to compare it to.
Mr. Gilchrest. Well, the management plan for pollock which
we are discussing today. The management plan for pollock, I
guess Dr. Pereyra disagrees with at this point, and Mr. Marks
disagrees with. I am not sure where Mr. Lavigne is on this, but
the management plan for pollock which Mr. Marks disagrees, Dr.
Rosenberg feels that it is necessary at this point. So where is
the place that you think should be studied? How long would that
study take, and I hope the regime doesn't change during the
course of that study, and do you feel that Dr. Rosenberg has an
adequate management plan for pollock during the course of that
study? I don't know if I should put you on the spot.
Mr. Young. Not when he is giving her money.
Ms. Wynne. No. Again, I have a bias because in my backyard
not only am I a member of the Kodiak community and subsist
there and a part of that economy, but I am a biologist in the
area that I think is the most intriguing place in Alaska for a
number of reasons. Biologically, not only does it have
incredible fishing effort, a number of different fisheries. It
has one of the greatest concentrations of some of the
piscivorous whales, humpback and fin whales, who are doing
well, by the way, in light of the fact that the pinniped
declines (of harbor seals and Steller sea lions) have been
centered right there in Kodiak.
So, to me, my personal bias, (and I just happen to be
living there, too,) is that Kodiak makes for a great study
area, not to just look at pollock and sea lions, but to look at
an entire predator-prey relationship--you have to define your
universe somehow, and that would be a palatable size for
defining that universe, something you could study, and whether
that would exclude NMFS' management plan I couldn't say. I
think it would help refine some of the--or maybe even test some
of the assumptions that were put into the play with the buffer
zones, for instance, that you could actually create the study
to test some of the assumptions that went into that.
Mr. Marks. Representative Gilchrest, if I may, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Young. I am going to tell you yes, about one minute
because I am about ready to excuse this panel and call the next
panel up, primarily for the recognition of the time is weighted
and we are going to have a vote in about 20 minutes so I would
like to get the second panel up as near as possible.
Mr. Marks. The point I will make is Kodiak could be a
sensible spot to do this because three of the eight areas that
the agency is pending to close down, three of the eight haulout
areas are located around Kodiak Island. They are critical areas
for the small boat trawl float. They are right there near
Kodiak. That might be a good place for us to start where we can
get the biggest bang for our buck to address the pending
measures that may be coming down into 2000.
Mr. Young. I want to thank the panel, well done, and we
will be looking at this issue again.
Now, I will introduce--bring our second panel up. The
second panel we have is Ms. Beth Stewart, representing the
Honorable Dick Jacobsen, Mayor of the Aleutians East Borough,
who was unable due to weather problems to arrive here in
Washington, DC, and the fish are running; the Honorable Frank
Kelty, Mayor of the City of Unalaska; Mr. Al Burch, Executive
Director of Alaska Draggers Association; Dr. George Owletuck of
Anchorage, Alaska; and Mr. Peter Van Tuyn, Trustees for Alaska.
We will start out with Ms. Beth Stewart.
STATEMENT OF BETH STEWART, NATURAL RESOURCES DIRECTOR,
ALEUTIANS EAST BOROUGH
Ms. Stewart. Mr. Chairman, panel members, thank you so
much. My name is Beth Stewart. I am the Natural Resources
Director for the Aleutians East Borough.
Mr. Young. Bring that mike in front of you, please.
Ms. Stewart. In our written comments to you, you will find
a map of the Aleutians East Borough and with that a second map
that shows you where the current closures are, where the new
closures are going to be, and you can see from looking at that
map that for the villages of King Cove and Sand Point, who are
actively involved in the pollock trawl fishery, as well as
other fisheries in the region, this new plan is going to leave
very little room for people to fish.
We are home to the smallest of the trawlers that operate in
the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. All of our trawlers are
also limit seiners, and the Alaska limit seine is a 58-foot
limit. So these are boats that are going to have a very
difficult time fishing 20 miles offshore. They pack 150,000
pounds at the maximum. They fish in very dangerous waters. The
Bering Sea has a fiercer reputation, but having been on the
Gulf side, I am not sure I understand why.
I am not going to read my comments to you today. I am going
to summarize quickly in honor of your time constraints. Five of
our six villages are Alaska Land Claim Settlement Act villages.
Four of those villages are the home of the remaining Eastern
Aleut population. The last village, Akutan, is one of the--it
is the oldest continuously settled habitation in the Aleutians.
It is a very small population of western Aleuts. These are
people who are still harvesting Steller sea lions directly as
subsistence take for their dietary needs. They are not
traditionally involved in commercial fishing. They are working
to develop a P. cod fishery. They don't have a boat harbor.
They live with very small 16-foot skiffs, but they are tied to
the land and the sea in the same way that people from Sand
Point, Cold Bay, King Cove, False Pass and Nelson Lagoon are.
They noticed about 15 years ago that there was another
decline, as they call it, of the Steller sea lion population,
and as they always have, in the face of what was apparent to
them, they began cutting back on the number of Steller sea
lions that they take. So that in my conversations with them in
the last month we believe now that they probably take three a
year which represents a substantial decline in their personal
takes of Stellers. So it is important to them that the Steller
sea lion population return to its healthier levels, but it is
not the first time they have seen a decline in Steller sea
lions in the region, and they certainly don't expect it to be
the last time.
They associate this decline, as do people in False Pass,
King Cove and Sand Point, with a decline of, what they call
locally, candle fish. This would be referred to by scientists
as capelin. They are called candle fish because when you dry
them, it just takes a few of them lit by a match to start a
fire with wet driftwood on the beach. We have no trees in the
area so you burn whatever it is that floats ashore. Candle fish
are a high fat item and a prized survival species for people in
the region. We have noticed a shift and some hopeful sign that
candle fish are coming back.
Sand Point and King Cove, although people there will
sometimes get subsistence meat from relatives in Akutan,
currently have no active subsistence hunters for Steller sea
lions. What they do have is a strong desire to be diversified
fishermen. They have combination vessels. They have learned
over time not to fish a single species, so they take pollock,
salmon, herring, halibut to the extent they can with the IFQ
rules, and crab when they are around. These folks are strongly
impacted by the measures taken for Steller sea lions and began
to get involved in this issue in 1990 when Steller sea lions
were listed as threatened. They became very active in the MMPA
reauthorization, worked to build coalitions with environmental
organizations and in our own region ended the practice of
shooting Steller sea lions.
I am sure it is not news to the Chairman, but Alaska had an
attitude about seals and sea lions dating from the 30s and 40s,
that they were salmon predators, that they were nuisances and
that they needed to be shot. When I was growing up, we got paid
three dollars a nose for seals. I hear others made less. There
was never a bounty on Steller sea lions, probably because if
you hit one, they generally sink right away, but people were
encouraged to shoot them, and they grew up thinking this was
appropriate behavior.
It became clear in 1990 that that idea had changed, and we
made extensive efforts to make sure people quit shooting not
only Stellers but seals, and given the relationships between
fishermen and small communities someone is always mad at
someone else, so if this was going on we would hear about it
today and we don't. We have successfully ended the practice of
shooting these animals, except for subsistence takes.
We were hopeful at the time that the National Marine
Fisheries Service would spend a lot of money and time trying to
come up with a better way to deal with this situation. I guess
we are making some progress this week, but we have been largely
disappointed about the efforts being made to collect more than
just scant samples of the population status. We strongly
support the remarks that Kate Wynne made. We believe that you
have to have some kind of focused scientific investigation so
that Steller sea lions can recover so that we know what to
expect and so that everyone can get on with making a living in
a way that doesn't cost one species or another its ability to
survive.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jacobsen follows:]
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Mr. Young. Thank you, Beth, good job.
Frank Kelty.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK V. KELTY, MAYOR, CITY OF UNALASKA
Mr. Kelty. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank
you for the opportunity to speak to you today on this very
important issue. My name is Frank Kelty. I am the Mayor of the
City of Unalaska, this nation's number one commercial fishing
port for 10 years in a row in tonnage landed and in dollar
value. Each year between 500 to 700 million pounds of product
is processed in my community, and the dollar value of that
product is well in excess of $100 million. The total value of
the pollock fishery in Alaska is $1 billion annually.
The City of Unalaska, I would like to say up front,
supports Steller sea lion research and has provided funding to
the North Pacific Marine Science Foundation Consortium. It is a
consortium of universities, University of Alaska, University of
Washington, and the University of British Columbia. We have
been funding, have put it in--earmarking it in our budget
annually since its inception. The consortium receives its
funding from the seafood industry, grants, support sector
businesses and coastal communities.
The City of Unalaska has also used taxpayers' dollars to
become interveners in the Greenpeace-National Marine Fisheries
lawsuit. Why would we use taxpayers' dollars on these issues?
Because the fishing industry in Unalaska is the only economic
base we have, and the pollock fishery in our community is the
most important part of our fishery-based economy, and I will
say that again. It is the only economic base we have and the
pollock fishery is the most important part of our fishery-based
economy.
In 1997, National Marine Fisheries figures show that 93
percent of all product landed and processed in Unalaska was
groundfish. Eighty-three percent of that amount was pollock.
This shows the importance of the pollock fishery in the Bering
Sea to our community.
During my 30 years working in the Alaska seafood industry I
have seen the crash of the crab and shrimp stocks in the Gulf
of Alaska in the 70s. I lived and worked in Unalaska during the
Bering Sea Red King crash in the 80s. I have seen firsthand the
devastation of coastal communities whose economic base has
disappeared overnight. Employment in the community will be
hurt, not just in the local processing plants but in all
sectors. We have support sector businesses that have invested
hundreds of millions of dollars--millions of dollars in our
community. Their revenues would be hurt. The people that they
employ in the transportation, marine repair, retail stores,
fuel companies, longshoremen, city work force will all be
impacted. The City of Unalaska, with a major decline in
revenues, would have to cut back on our services, programs and
capital projects that we have would have to be delayed or
stopped.
There is a section in the Magnuson-Stevens Act that talks
about protection for fishery-dependent communities. We should
remember that section as we review these regulations. The most
damaging impact will be on the seafood processing industry,
both onshore and offshore sectors, and the fishing fleets that
provide products for these operations. They have invested
hundreds of millions of dollars in their shore plants, factory
trawlers that process at sea and use Unalaska as their support
base and in catcher vessels that deliver to these operations.
I would like to share with you some of the problems the
seafood industry has encountered because of the recent adoption
of the RPAs. The roe season was impacted with a 5 percent
reduction. The roe season is the most important part of the
pollock fishery and is critical to the bottom line of the
fishing fleet and processors.
The Aleutian Island pollock area was closed. This affected
fishing fleets, our local processing plants, the at-sea
processors and revenues to the community of Unalaska. That area
is valued at over $50 million a year.
The new RPA regulations require a stand down between
fishing seasons, which is very costly to industry. You are
geared, you have to stop for a period of time and then restart
again. You have got your crews, you have bought supplies but
you have to stop and start again.
Moving the fishing fleet away from sea lion critical
habitat areas and reducing the amount of fish taken from these
areas, as well as other proposed area closures or buffer zones,
could dramatically reduce the amount of fish available to
processors and fishing fleets. This could lead to quality
concerns of the product received by shore plants by our fishing
vessels who have to fish farther away and have longer running
time to get their product to the plants. Fishing in these areas
that the fleet hasn't traditionally fished could lead to
bycatch problems, gear conflict and could impact all fishery-
dependent communities in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.
National Marine Fisheries has imposed a jeopardy finding.
My community and other fishery-dependent communities and the
seafood industry of Alaska that supports these communities are
the ones facing jeopardy now. I would ask this Committee to
advise National Marine Fisheries of your concerns with the
biological opinion, jeopardy finding and the RPAs. Are these
decisions on good science and research? Do changes need to be
made to these regulations?
We would ask for your support for substantial funding for
independent research with peer review. Continued research for
this billion-dollar-a-year fishery is critical to the economic
well-being of the State of Alaska, the community of Unalaska
and the seafood industry.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kelty follows:]
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Mr. Young. You did that well. You timed it just right.
Mr. Burch.
STATEMENT OF AL BURCH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA DRAGGERS
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Burch. Boy, he sure don't need a loud speaker.
Mr. Chairman, before I give my testimony, I would just want
to acknowledge that we did have a meeting, very good
discussion, with the Secretary of Commerce about research. I
would like to thank the Secretary for his willingness to work
with Alaskans on a research program. We had that meeting
yesterday afternoon. I was very pleased.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak before this
Subcommittee. I am Al Burch, Executive Director of the Alaska
Draggers Association in Kodiak, Alaska. Most of the trawl
vessels I represent, including my own two trawlers, the Dawn
and the Dusk, are small trawlers under 100 feet in length and
most are owned by Kodiak residents.
I started fishing shrimp out of Seward with my brother Oral
in 1960. When our plant was destroyed by the '64 earthquake, we
moved to Kodiak. During those early years, we did whatever we
could to keep the boats busy, a little crab, shrimp, salmon,
halibut, herring, charters, seals and sea lion reduction. In
those days, there was a bounty on seals and the bounty helped
put food on the table. Sea lions were considered predators on
salmon. During World War II, prior to the start of the salmon
season, the Navy and the Army would strafe the sea lion
rookeries as a public service.
In the mid-70s there was a big change in the central
western Gulf of Alaska. Shrimp and crab started to disappear.
Fortunately, Alaska Department of Fish and Game had kept two
bays closed to shrimp fishing as controls. The shrimp in these
bays disappeared just as fast as the shrimp in the open bays so
we knew it wasn't the fisheries that caused the decline.
Without shrimp, we had to look for other opportunities and
got a job fishing Pacific cod for a Portuguese joint venture
and went on to fish joint venture pollock in the Shelikof
straits. When the local processing plants geared up to process
groundfish, we fished and still fish for the Kodiak shore-based
plants.
Mid-70s, during years that the shrimp and the crab
declined, there were a lot of other things that changed. The
water warmed up. One summer we had sea lion diving on our trawl
nets. They could really tear up the net. I think our crews
spent as much time mending web as they did fishing.
The other thing that happened was a buildup of pollock in
Shelikof straits in the spring. In 1977 my brother called NMFS
and asked them to come out and look at Shelikof straits. The
director at that time told him there wasn't any pollock in
Shelikof straits. About two years later, NMFS did look at
Shelikof straits and figured out that there was more than a
million metric tons of pollock spawning there. At that moment,
NMFS decided that all pollock in the Gulf spawned in the
Shelikof. It wasn't true but a lot of research was done on the
idea that all Gulf pollock spawned in the Shelikof straits.
Kodiak is a fishing-dependent community. It is the only
port in Alaska whose fleet is composed of all gear types, the
only port that processes all fisheries from pollock to urchins,
the only port in Alaska that operates year round, and the only
port in Alaska with a resident processing work force. Our homes
are here. Our children are raised here.
Any downturn of Kodiak's economy is hardest on the
processing plant workers. If there is not work most of the year
for the processing plant workers, they have to leave. The
vessels struggle but not all economically survive. When
survival is difficult, some vessel owners can't afford to
properly maintain their vessels, and there are more accidents
at sea, more loss of life.
When the economy turns sour, small businesses fail. The
whole community feels the economic stress, and the usual social
problems that are part of any economic downturn occur. The
community begins to come apart.
I know what it is like in an economic downturn. Kodiak went
through a major downturn in the eighties when the shrimp and
crab fisheries were lost and the processors had not made the
investments to buy machinery to process groundfish.
I have been in jeopardy on the water a few times, but the
jeopardy I, and many like me, now face is the prospect of
losing everything we worked for all our lives to protect sea
lions. We are being closed out of the nearshore waters.
In the Gulf of Alaska I am not sure we can find much
pollock offshore, but I am sure that fishing offshore
represents a real danger to our boats and crews. When nature
took away the shrimp and crab, it was a trade. Pollock for
shrimp, cod fish for crab. If National Marine Fisheries Service
would hire the Kodiak pollock fleet to monitor the sea lion
haulouts, I would consider that a reasonable trade. Otherwise I
think mugging probably describes my view.
Kodiak's pre-state history left Kodiak with a strong
conservation ethic. The Russians wiped out the fur-bearing
marine mammals. Whalers wiped out the whales. The Federal
Government mismanaged salmon. The foreign fisheries wiped out
the Pacific Ocean perch. All of these species have been
rebuilt, some at great short-term cost to our community.
The community of Kodiak has willingly paid the price for
the rebuilding. All of us want a healthy ecosystem and a
sustainable fisheries for ourselves today and for all future
generations. I have been a member of the North Pacific
Fisheries Management Council's advisory panel for 22 years.
Every conservation action the advisory panel has ever
recommended and every conservation measure the council has
recommended has been based on scientific research and the
recommendations of the Science and Statistical Committee,
except for the sea lion protective measures.
Marine mammal biologists' current theory, as I understand
it, is that the pollock fisheries which in the Gulf of Alaska
takes only 7 to 10 percent of the pollock biomass spread out in
three separate openings, each lasting 3 to 20 days depending on
the quota, creates localized depletion of pollock. The
biologists admit that they have no data to show localized
depletion, but they believe that that is the problem.
Apparently, the marine mammal biologists' belief carries more
weight than any research.
I have kind of lost faith in the ability of the leadership
in the agency to provide the research we need. There are many
good scientists in the agency but they are not the leadership.
I would feel more comfortable if Congress exercised annual
oversight to include scientists outside the National Marine
Fisheries Service in the oversight. If there is not a long-term
coordinated research plan developed that looks at what sea
lions do every month of the year, we will continue for the next
25 years hearing there is not enough data or the sample size is
too small to be meaningful. Our communities will be extinct but
the Steller sea lion will still be around.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burch follows:]
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Mr. Young. Thank you, Al.
Mr. George Owletuck.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE OWLETUCK, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
Mr. Owletuck. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Subcommittee
members. Thanks for the opportunity to testify today. My name
is George Owletuck from Marshall, Alaska. I am a lifelong
Yup'ik Eskimo hunter and commercial fisherman. I hold a
bachelor's degree from the University of Alaska, and I have
worked for Senator Stevens for three years in his Alaska
office. I have worked for Senator Lyman Hoffman in the Alaska
Legislature for rural issues, and I have worked for the Yukon-
Kuskokwim Coastal Research Service Area on coastal research
issues for two years, and the past year I had worked for the
Alaska Inter-Tribal Council as their natural resources director
representing Alaska Native interests. My individual testimony
is as a concerned Alaskan Native over the long-term decline of
animal species in Alaska waters.
Subsistence uses of land animals, waterfowl, salmon and
marine mammals have provided for the sustenance of Alaska
Native families for millennia. Entire indigenous Alaska
cultures revolve around the harvests, utilization and
distribution of various plant and animal species. Alaska Native
societies still depend on this hunting, fishing and gathering
lifestyle for nutritional, physical and spiritual well-being.
Immersing oneself in the wilderness of creation instills a
growing awareness of the creator and the laws of nature over a
lifetime of living the hunting, fishing and gathering
lifestyle. This acute awareness conveys the sense that the
creator has established a balance in nature to sustain the food
chains in the web of life. Alaska Natives, indeed indigenous
peoples, maintain cultures that perpetuate lifestyles of living
in harmony with the environment, creation to preserve this
delicate balance in nature.
I am going to summarize this whole statement here.
The severe declines of animal populations such as sea lions
suggest that the intense commercial harvests of Alaska waters
have upset the balance of their delicate ecosystems. The
declines in Steller sea lions began in the eastern Aleutian
Islands in the early seventies where a massive trawl fishery
for pollock was concentrated at the time. Further declines
occurred in the Gulf of Alaska and along the Aleutian chain as
large-scale groundfish trawling moved into those regions. No
declines in sea lions have occurred in southeast Alaska where
no high volume groundfish trawling occurs. Lack of available
food is the leading explanation for the declines in sea lions
and other species.
The average amount of pollock harvested annually from
waters of critical habitat where sea lions feed and breed has
increased from 672 million pounds in 1986 to 1.79 million
pounds in this decade. The fisheries have also become
concentrated into the fall and winter when adequate food
availability is most crucial for sea lions. Thus, the evidence
suggests that populations of pollock predators have dropped at
least in part because of an intense and concentrated fishing.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric fisheries' recent
Steller sea lions stock assessment show population declines
from 110,000 in 1978 to fewer than 40,000 today. Steller sea
lions were listed as threatened in 1990, and those found in the
Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska were
reclassified as endangered in 1997.
The problem is not with the conclusions of jeopardy and
adverse modification. The problem is with the agency's failure
in the RPA to address the underlying problems or to avoid
jeopardy to the sea lion or adverse modification of its
critical habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service must
act aggressively to halt the sea lion decline and recover this
endangered animal. NMFS should prohibit trawling in all
critical habitats surrounding sea lion rookeries and haulouts,
should dramatically reduce the catches of pollock, Atka
mackerel and other fish essential for sea lion survival in at-
sea foraging areas, reduce the overall catches of pollock and
other groundfish, particularity the catches of spawning pollock
and spread the remaining catch over the entire year and over
broader areas of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, rather than
allowing the catch to be concentrated in time and space as it
is now.
Managers must recover the sea lions over time while still
protecting the Alaska communities that rely on fishing for
jobs. For millennia Natives have depended upon these animals
for cultural, spiritual, nutritional and economic survival.
Increased involvement of Native elders and leaders in research,
regulation and enforcement is necessary for effective policy
making. To date this has not happened. Indeed, at the same time
NMFS has been reviewing the impacts of fisheries on the sea
lions, it is also attempting to review the impact of the
fisheries on the ecosystem as a whole. Yet, it is doing this
without the involvement of the local people. It rushed through
the National Environmental Policy Act process apparently
because it did not want to slow down the commercial fisheries.
Even the Environmental Protection Agency noted NMFS' failure to
involve local people. In a letter, they stated that NEPA,
ANILCA and the Federal trust responsibility requires that the
supplemental environmental impact statement respectfully
analyze proposed projects which could potentially conflict with
Indian tribes, the effects on subsistence uses and needs and
whether proposed actions are consistent with Federal agencies,
fiduciary trust responsibility for Native Alaskans. EPA also
noticed that SCIC lacked and continues to lack a discussion of
the impacts of the fishing management plan on Native
subsistence users and should include an analysis of direct,
indirect and cumulative impacts on subsistence users as
required by NEPA.
Another note in the EPA letter was that completely missing
from the decision-making process was consultation with
Federally recognized tribal governments in Alaska in accordance
with general trust responsibility and the recent Presidential
Executive Order of May 31, 1998, consultation and coordination
with Indian tribal governments. Tribal governments are uniquely
qualified to provide knowledge about resource trends and
potential impacts to people and resources in their homelands.
I have attached this letter to my testimony, and I would
like to convey that the use of Alaska Native traditional
knowledge and wisdom, along with ecosystem-based research, is
in order. We must ensure that trawl fisheries do not
overexploit these waters in order to maintain the balance in
nature necessary to sustain the food chains in the Bering Sea
and the Gulf of Alaska ecosystems. We must protect this
delicate balance in nature to preserve sustainable fisheries
and the Alaska Native hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Owletuck follows:]
STATEMENT OF GEORGE OWLETUCK, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee
on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify on the National Marine Fisheries
Service's (NMFS) scientific research program on Steller sea
lions and the process used to develop the jeopardy finding, the
Biological Opinion, and the Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives
(RPA) for the pollock fishery under the Endangered Species Act.
My name is George Owletuck, from Marshall, Alaska. I am a
lifelong Yup'ik Eskimo subsistence hunter and fisherman. I hold
a 1995 Bachelor's of Education from the University of Alaska,
Anchorage. I've served under The Washington Center's 1992
National Minority Leader's Fellowship in the DC office of U.S.
Senator Ted Stevens and served on his Alaska staff for three
years. I worked for Senator Lyman F. Hoffman in the Alaska
State Legislature on rural issues. I served as the Director of
the Yukon-Kuskokwim Coastal Resource Service Area addressing
coastal resource issues under the Federal Coastal Zone
Management Act. I recently served as the Natural Resources
Director for the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, a consortium
representing Alaska Native interests. My individual testimony
is as an Alaska Native subsistence hunter and fisherman
concerned over the long-term decline of animal species in
Alaska waters.
Subsistence uses of land animals, waterfowl, salmon, and
marine mammals have provided for the sustenance of Alaska
Native families for millennia. Entire indigenous Alaska
cultures revolve around the harvests, utilization and
distribution of various plant and animal species. Alaska Native
societies still depend upon this hunting, fishing and gathering
lifestyle for nutritional, physical, and spiritual well-being.
Immersing oneself in the wilderness of Creation instills a
growing awareness of the Creator and the Laws of Nature over a
lifetime of living the hunting, fishing and gathering
lifestyle. This acute awareness conveys the sense that the
Creator has established a balance in nature to sustain the food
chains in the web of life. Alaska Natives, indeed indigenous
peoples, maintain cultures that perpetuate lifestyles of living
in harmony with the enviromnent--Creation--to preserve this
delicate balance in nature.
The severe declines of animal populations, such as sea
lions, suggest that the intense commercial harvests of Alaska
waters have upset the balance of their delicate ecosystems. The
National Marine Fisheries Service needs to address the imminent
extinction of Steller sea lions in Alaska waters. The billion-
dollar groundfish trawl fishery is strongly linked to the
drastic decline of marine animal populations in Alaska.
Devastating marine animal population declines coincide with the
development of high-volume trawl fisheries in the same times
and areas. Steller sea lions, harbor seals, seabirds and salmon
feed on the same fish targeted by the groundfish trawl
fisheries. The population of sea lions has declined 80 percent
over the last three decades. The sea lions are ``endangered''
under the Endangered Species Act. Northern fur seals are
``depleted'' under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Returning
salmon numbers have plummeted so severely that the Yukon-
Kuskokwim River fisheries have been declared a disaster by the
state of Alaska.
Drastic population declines suggest that the concentration
of the fisheries in time and space have detrimental effects on
sea lions. The declines in Steller sea lions began in the
eastern Aleutian Islands in the early 1970s, where a massive
trawl fishery for pollock was concentrated at the time. Further
declines occurred in the Gulf of Alaska and along the Aleutian
chain as large-scale groundfish trawling moved into those
regions. No declines in sea lions have occurred in southeast
Alaska, where no high-volume groundfish trawling occurs. Lack
of available food is the leading explanation for the declines
in sea lions and other species, and all of these species, but
particularly sea lions, compete directly with the massive
fisheries for pollock, Atka mackerel, and other groundfish.
Moreover, these fisheries have become extremely
concentrated into sea lion critical habitat, which was
designated based expressly on the need for adequate food in
these areas. The average amount of pollock harvested annually
from waters of critical habitat where sea lions feed and breed
has increased from 672 million pounds in 1986 to 1.79 million
pounds in this decade.
The fisheries also have become concentrated into the fall
and winter, the when adequate food availability is most crucial
for sea lions. Thus, the evidence suggests that populations of
pollock predators have dropped, at least in part, because of
intense and concentrated fishing. A NOAA Fisheries' recent
Steller sea lion stock assessment show population declines from
110,000 in 1978 to fewer than 40,000 today. Steller sea lions
were listed as threatened in 1990, and those found in the
Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska were
reclassified as endangered in 1997.
For these reasons, I strongly support the conclusions of
jeopardy and adverse modification. The problem is not with the
conclusions, the problem is with the agency's failure in the
RPA to address the underlying problems or to avoid jeopardy to
the sea lion or adverse modification of its critical habitat.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must act
aggressively to halt the sea lion decline and recover this
endangered animal. NMFS should (1) prohibit trawling in all
critical habitat surrounding sea lion rookeries and haulouts;
(2) dramatically reduce the catches of pollock, Atka mackerel
and other fish essential for sea lion survival in at-sea
foraging areas; (3) reduce the overall catches of pollock and
other groundfish, particularly the catches of spawning pollock;
and (4) spread the remaining catch over the entire year and
over broader areas of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, rather
than allowing the catch to be concentrated in time and space as
it is now.
Alaska Native communities are directly affected by the
drastic declines in Alaska marine species. Managers must
recover the sea lions over time while still protecting the
Alaska communities that rely on fishing for jobs. The Alaska
pollock fishery is worth an estimated $670 million annually.
For millennia, Natives have depended upon these animals for
cultural, spiritual, nutritional and economic survival.
Increased involvement of Native elders and leaders in research,
regulation and enforcement is necessary for effective policy-
making. To date, this has not happened. Indeed, at the same
time NMFS has been reviewing the impacts of the fisheries on
the sea lions, it is also attempting to review the impact of
the fisheries on the ecosystem as a whole. Yet it is doing this
without the involvement of local people. It rushed through this
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process apparently
because it did not want to slow down the commercial fisheries.
Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noted NMFS'
failures to involve local people:
Concern with the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
(SEIS) lacking a discussion of impacts on Alaska
Natives'subsistence needs and uses
Our comment stated that NEPA, Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA) and the Federal trust responsibility
requires that the SEIS respectively analyze proposed projects
which could potentially conflict with Indian tribes (40 CFR
1502.16), ``the effects on subsistence uses and needs'' (16
U.S.C. Section 3120(a)), and whether proposed actions are
consistent with Federal Agencies' fiduciary trust
responsibility for Native Alaskans. We also noted that Congress
recognizes the importance of subsistence lifestyles even when
utilizing threatened or endangered species by granting taking
exemptions for the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal
Protection Acts at 16 U.S.C. Section 1539(e).
Our comment was that the SEIS lacked and continues to lack a
discussion of the impacts of the Fishing Management Plan (FMP)
on Native subsistence users and should include an analysis of
direct, indirect and cumulative impacts on subsistence users as
required by NEPA (40 CFR 1502.16). We strongly recommend that
you consult with subsistence users regarding the impacts of the
fisheries. Notably absent from the SEIS is consultation with
the tribes that have hunted and fished the region for centuries
and depend on it for subsistence . . .
Another aspect which was completely missing from the decision
making process was consultation with Federally recognized
Tribal governments in Alaska in accordance with the general
trust responsibility and the recent Presidential Executive
Order of May 31, 1998, Consultation and Coordination with
Indian Tribal Governments (E.O. 13084). Tribal governments are
uniquely qualified to provide knowledge about resource trends
and potential impacts to people and resources in their homeland
areas. The SEIS has not directly consulted tribal governments,
and thus cannot provide a complete discussion of significant
environmental impacts.
I have attached this letter to my testimony, and it underscores the
frustration we have with NMFS.
The use of Alaska Native traditional knowledge and wisdom along
with ecosystem-based research is in order. This approach will be an
effective process for identifying appropriate strategies to address the
severe declines of animal species in Alaska waters. We must ensure the
trawl fisheries do not over-exploit these waters in order to maintain
the balance in nature necessary to sustain the food chains in the
Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska ecosystems. We must protect this
delicate balance in nature to preserve sustainable fisheries and the
Alaska Native hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle.
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
Mr. Saxton. [presiding] Thank you very much.
Mr. Van Tuyn.
STATEMENT OF PETER VAN TUYN, TRUSTEES FOR ALASKA
Mr. Van Tuyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am the litigation
director of Trustees for Alaska, which is a nonprofit public
interest and environmental law firm in Anchorage. We are based
in Anchorage. We, along with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund,
represent Greenpeace, American Oceans Campaign and the Sierra
Club in the pending lawsuit on the North Pacific groundfish
fisheries.
My testimony will be directed primarily to NMFS'
obligations under the Endangered Species Act, the Magnuson-
Stevens Act and NEPA with respect to those fisheries. Before I
begin, though, I would like to illustrate why we are here. We
have got three pictures of what was once the largest sea lion
rookery in the world. The first picture shows that rookery in
1969. The second picture shows that same rookery in 1979, and
the final picture shows that rookery in 1986. Those numbers are
no better today, Mr. Chairman. That is why we are here.
The United States Supreme Court said in the renowned
Tennessee Valley Authority case that the Endangered Species
Act, when passed, was the most comprehensive legislation for
preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation.
That is still true today. Section 7 of the Endangered Species
Act requires Federal agencies undertaking actions which may
impact listed species to consult with an expert agency. This
consultation is to ensure that that agency's actions are not
likely to jeopardize the continued existence of a listed
species or result in the adverse modification of its critical
habitat.
It is somewhat unique in the case at hand where the
National Marine Fisheries Service is both the action agency
charged by the Magnuson-Stevens Act with implementing and
managing the fisheries and the expert agency charged by the
Endangered Species Act with protecting listed species.
Importantly, under the Endangered Species Act, listed
species get the benefit of the doubt. Thus, NMFS had to show
that the pollock fishery was not harming the Steller sea lion
or its habitat, and its December 1998 biological opinion
reveals that it could not make this showing.
The question was raised earlier why NMFS felt over the
years and through prior consultations that it could make this
showing. The difference is that the Steller sea lion has
continued its very drastic decline, being downgraded from
threatened to endangered in 1997, and throughout all of the
previous consultations the food stress issue was identified as
a possible cause, and pointed research was identified as
something that could change the agency's consultation opinion
at some later date. That later date concluded in December 1998
with the jeopardy and adverse modification findings, based in
part on the new information that concerned localized depletions
of pollock, information that was not available before that
time.
In line with the Endangered Species Act, and as you have
heard here this afternoon, NMFS then laid out a reasonable and
prudent alternative that would set the stage for avoiding
jeopardy and avoiding adverse modification of habitat. It was
at this point that NMFS took its unprecedented step of asking
the Council to review the reasonable and prudent alternatives.
Not unexpectedly, the Council, which is industry-dominated,
diluted every single management measure which NMFS had said was
necessary to avoid jeopardy and adverse modification. It moved
the bar from where the scientists said it should be to a lower
level.
NMFS then adopted all of the Council's changes with no
explanation as to how moving the bar down protected the Steller
sea lions from jeopardy or adverse modification. This raises
Endangered Species Act concerns. As the United States Supreme
Court said, Congress has spoken in the plainest of words,
making it abundantly clear that the balance has been struck in
favor of affording listed species the highest of priorities.
We have also heard today that the Magnuson-Stevens Act
somehow excuses or gives NMFS the obligation to take the
Council's thoughts into account when developing the reasonable
and prudent alternatives. I beg to differ, Mr. Chairman. The
Magnuson-Stevens Act and the Endangered Species Act are
actually quite complementary. Both require that NMFS act as a
careful steward of marine resources. In fact, at the bottom
line, if there is a conflict between the Endangered Species Act
and other law, the ESA requires agencies to alter ongoing
projects to afford listed species the highest of priorities.
Thus, while it was not necessarily improper for NMFS to
allow the Council to review the reasonable and prudent
alternatives, it was improper for NMFS to lower and sanction
the Council's actions with no regard for what they had to do
with the Steller sea lions.
Finally, I will touch on the National Environmental Policy
Act which, when used correctly, could have avoided the
situation in the first place. Under that landmark environmental
law, the twin goals of which are to inform decision makers and
inform the public participation of agency action, the agency
should be doing a big picture spot check of the impacts of its
actions. That means throughout the twenty-odd years of NMFS'
management of groundfish fisheries in the North Pacific, it
should have looked at the full impact of its actions. If it
could have foreseen through that process the problems that were
coming, we might not be in the crisis situation we are in
today.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, if you protect the ecosystem
and analyze it through these NEPA analyses, you are also
protecting the sustainability of the fisheries. That is a key
point because as goes the Steller sea lions, so will go the
rest of the Bering Sea, including the fisheries.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Van Tuyn follows:]
STATEMENT OF PETER VAN TUYN, TRUSTEES FOR ALASKA
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee
on Fisheries Conservation, Oceans, and Wildlife, thank you for
the opportunity to testify today regarding the National Marine
Fisheries Service's (NMFS) development of the Biological
Opinion, jeopardy and adverse modification finding, and
reasonable and prudent alternatives for the management of the
pollock fishery in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. I am the
litigation director for Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit
public interest environmental law firm based in Anchorage,
Alaska. We, along with the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund,
represent Greenpeace, the American Oceans Campaign, and the
Sierra Club in the pending lawsuit against the National Marine
Fisheries Service over the conduct of the massive North Pacific
groundfish fisheries and their impact on the endangered Steller
sea lion. My testimony today will be directed primarily to the
obligations of NMFS under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the
Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), and the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) with respect to the management of those
fisheries.
As the Supreme Court noted in TVA v. Hill, the Endangered
Species Act was, when passed, ``the most comprehensive
legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever
enacted by any nation.'' That is still true today. Section 4 of
the Act sets up a process by which imperiled species are
designated as either threatened or endangered, and section 9
prohibits the ``taking'' of any such listed species or its
habitat.
Section 7 of the ESA--which is what we are talking about
today--requires that any Federal agency undertaking an action
that may affect a threatened or endangered species must engage
in formal consultation with the expert agency to ``insure''
that its actions are not ``likely to jeopardize the continued
existence,'' or ``result in the destruction or adverse
modification of'' the critical habitat of that species. That
consultation process results in a Biological Opinion giving the
agency's view of whether such jeopardy or adverse modification
is likely to occur. If the expert agency finds that jeopardy or
adverse modification is likely to occur then the expert agency
must ``suggest those reasonable and prudent alternatives which
[it] believes will'' avoid such jeopardy or adverse
modification.
With respect to the endangered Steller sea lion, NMFS is
the ``action'' agency because it manages the groundfish
fisheries. NMFS is also the ``consulting'' agency, because it
is charged with protecting marine mammals such as the Steller
sea lion.
The important thing to remember about this consultation
process is that the species always gets the benefit of the
doubt. So, in this case, the agency must show that the huge
pollock fishery does not jeopardize the continued existence of
the Steller sea lion or adversely modify its critical habitat.
That proved to be a showing that the agency's experts could not
make.
I understand that the focus of today's hearing is on the
process that resulted in this determination, so I want to back
up a little bit to discuss the facts that triggered this
consultation. First, and most importantly, the Biological
Opinions that governed the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska both
stated on their faces that they would no longer be valid for
the 1999 fishery, so NMFS really had no choice but to prepare a
new Biological Opinion. In addition, Congress passed the
American Fisheries Act and the North Pacific Fishery Management
Council adopted the Inshore/Offshore Amendments, both of which
substantially changed the way the pollock fishery was
prosecuted and would have required new consultation. Moreover,
the Steller sea lion was downgraded from threatened to
endangered in 1997, indicating that then-existing conservation
measures were not stemming its decline. These are just a few of
the factors that led to the reinitiation of consultation and
the current opinion.
As this consultation proceeded, it became apparent to NMFS
scientists that the massive commercial pollock fishery was
likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the Steller sea
lion and to modify its critical habitat. This determination was
spurred, in part, by new information indicating that the
fisheries do indeed cause localized depletion of pollock and
Atka mackerel, the two most important prey species for Steller
sea lions.
When NMFS began to realize this, it took--from our
perspective--the unprecedented and unusual step of asking for a
special Council meeting to discuss its likely conclusion. The
Endangered Species Act neither requires nor prohibits NMFS from
involving the Council in the consultation process. But by
inviting a political body like the fishery management council
to weigh into the process, NMFS injected politics into its
scientific decision. As I will detail, those politics have made
matters worse for the fishery and for the Steller sea lion.
The final Biological Opinion was released on December 3,
1998. Despite the fact that the Endangered Species Act requires
NMFS to determine the content of the reasonable and prudent
alternatives, the Biological Opinion contained what the agency
termed a ``framework Reasonable and Prudent Alternative.'' At
its December meeting, the Council diluted every single
management measure that NMFS said in the Biological Opinion was
required to prevent jeopardy and adverse modification. None of
these measures were based on maintaining the health of the
Steller sea lion, but were instead aimed at maintaining the
profits of the commercial fishing industry. NMFS then adopted
them without explaining how the sea lion was protected given
the dilution of the framework alternative.
This clearly violated both the letter and the spirit of the
ESA. To quote TVA v. Hill: ``Congress has spoken in the
plainest of words, making it abundantly clear that the balance
has been struck in favor of affording endangered species the
highest of priorities.'' That mandate was not followed in this
instance.
So the notion that NMFS failed to involve the Council in
the development of the Biological Opinion and the Reasonable
and Prudent Alternative is not supported by the facts. The real
problem with the process was that NMFS completely failed to
inform the Council how limited the Council's discretion was in
this instance. While NMFS was within its rights to ask the
Council the best way to implement the measures that NMFS
determined are necessary to protect endangered Steller sea
lions, NMFS had no authority to allow the Council to lower the
bar by weakening the effectiveness of the Reasonable and
Prudent Alternative. This was a complete abdication of its
authority by NMFS and simply cannot be tolerated under the
Endangered Species Act.
Nothing in the Magnuson-Stevens Act changes this
conclusion, moreover. Rather, the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the
Endangered Species Act are complementary in that they both
require NMFS to act as a careful steward of marine ecosystems.
Although Magnuson-Stevens does not specifically reference
the Endangered Species Act, it clearly requires that the
Secretary of Commerce (and thus NMFS) must ensure that proposed
Fishery Management Plans, Plan amendments and regulations
comply with ``other applicable law.'' ``Other applicable law''
obviously includes the Endangered Species Act. If there is a
conflict between the ESA and the agency's duties under its
authorizing statute, the ESA ``require[s] agencies to alter
ongoing projects'' and ``afford[s] endangered species the
highest of priorities.'' In sum, Magnuson-Stevens itself
requires NMFS to comply with ``other applicable law,''
including the Endangered Species Act, in managing United States
fisheries. If there were a conflict between the authorizing
statute (Magnuson-Stevens) and the Endangered Species Act, the
Endangered Species Act governs.
Again, if NMFS wanted to seek input from the Council
through the Magnuson-Stevens process, that was not necessarily
impermissible or improper, but the Council process does not
give NMFS the authority to weaken protections required by the
Endangered Species Act.
Better, though, would have been for NMFS to use the well-
established National Environmental Policy Act process for this
purpose. Indeed, any concerns about public or Council
involvement in the Endangered Species Act process could have
been remedied had NMFS complied with the National Environmental
Policy Act. NEPA requires that agencies strive to coordinate
their NEPA compliance ``with environmental impact analyses and
related surveys and studies required by . . . the Endangered
Species Act.'' NMFS' own Section 7 regulations reinforce this
requirement, stating that it ``will attempt to provide a
coordinated review and analysis of all environmental
requirements.'' The Council on Environmental Quality--the
special Federal agency charged with implementing the National
Environmental Policy Act--has regulations which further
reinforce this duty.
Despite the law, NMFS expressly avoided a coordinated,
integrated, review of Steller sea lion issues in its recent
Environmental Impact Statement, even though the Section 7
Biological Opinions were being prepared concurrently with the
Impact Statement. Had NMFS followed the correct process, the
public and the Council could have submitted comments on the
Biological Opinion and its consequences for the fishery.
Indeed, NMFS could have used this process to seek specific
input from the Council on management alternatives which would
sustain the necessary protections for the endangered Steller
sea lion as identified in the Biological Opinion, while at the
same time minimizing the impact to the fishery of implementing
such measures. Indeed, NMFS could have, and should have, used
the NEPA process over the last twenty years to evaluate the
full effects on the North Pacific of these fisheries--which may
have helped avoid crisis situations like that with which we are
now faced. This it did not do.
NMFS' failure in trying to avoid jeopardy to the endangered
Steller sea lion and adverse modification of its critical
habitat was to unnecessarily and improperly politicize an
already controversial process. Neither the sea lion, nor the
fisheries, are better off for it.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important
subject.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Van Tuyn. Let me just
begin by saying that all of you gave very, very good testimony.
I would just like to give each of you a minute or so to reflect
on what the first panel discussed, and give us your impressions
of what you heard from the first panel.
Ms. Stewart. I think it is hard for me to separate what I
heard from the first panel from what I have been hearing during
the course of the most current round of Steller sea lion
discussions at the council level with NMFS' staff and in other
meetings, but I think that of the scientists that spoke Kate
Wynne offered the first practical suggestion that has been
offered by anybody in a long time, and that is, you have to set
aside some area where you are going to focus and notice what
happens in that area and then inform yourself about what else
you might want to be looking at further on out, instead of
taking this massive but very general view of the interactions
between those animals and their environment. That is, I think,
the kind of thing that has been frustrating for folks in our
area who live every day with Steller sea lions and fish and
other animals, but these glittering generalities, these big
from the sky views of what is happening with the resource are
not helpful, you need daily contact, you need constant
experience in the area to see what is going on. So that is all
I think I have to say.
Mr. Kelty. I would concur with Beth's statements. I think
it is encouraging the meeting we had with Secretary Daley
yesterday and National Marine Fisheries officials gave us, I
think, some encouragement that they are understanding where we
are coming from and our concerns. I think it is the science and
the research is critical that we get increased funding. As I
stated in my testimony, it is a billion dollar a year fishery,
but you have got communities that are totally dependent on that
fishery and fishing fleets, people who have spent their lives
living in that area, and it is critical that we work on good
research.
I mentioned in my testimony that crab collapse in 1981. We
had 150 million pounds a year of Red King crab, and with no
warning, fishery was gone, went from 150 million pounds down to
30 million pounds in 1 year. The next year it was gone totally
and no warning, you know. Our community was almost 5,000 people
in those days. Within two years it was down to 1,500,
businesses were closed, plants were closed, and you know, I
don't want to see problems like that occur again in my
lifetime, and it is critical that we work off good science and
have adequate funding, substantial funding for research.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Mr. Burch.
Mr. Burch. Thank you. I agree with the previous two
speakers. It is difficult to separate what happened today with
what I have been hearing in the past. I think my frustrations
are, is the lack of action after the 1990 lawsuit, the recovery
teams that were created but not used. Encouraged with the
meeting, again as I stated, with the Secretary yesterday, I
think if we can carry forward and have more open meetings and
they can convince us, you know, that their data is adequate,
and that is going to be very difficult for me to accept
because, you know, it is just a total lack of data out there
that is being used.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Mr. Owletuck.
Mr. Owletuck. Thank you. A comment made by the individual
who was sitting on the left here, I forgot his name, but he
made a reference to the fact that the research was being done
without consultation of the people who live up in the area, and
I think that is something that needs to be addressed. No
further comments. Thank you.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Mr. Van Tuyn.
Mr. Van Tuyn. Mr. Chairman, the most telling thing I have
heard in today's presentation, and in fact we have been hearing
it from NMFS for a while, is their inability to look forward
and create a vision for what this fishery needs to look like in
the future to sustain itself and the health of the Bering Sea
ecosystem. A lot of comments were made about the peer review
report that was released two days ago. This is a perfect
example of how the agency is not focusing on the future but
looking backward toward the jeopardy and adverse modification
to see what, if anything, is wrong with that opinion. Let's
move on. Let's do something that gives us a vision for the
future. Let's make sure that this ecosystem is protected and
that the fishery is sustainable.
Thank you.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Mr. Van Tuyn, the pictures that you
showed us were very telling, and they show that over--what was
it, a 26-year period?
Mr. Van Tuyn. Nineteen sixty nine through 1986.
Mr. Saxton. That the population has declined, and I don't
think that anybody takes issue that the population has
declined. I don't think anyone takes issue with that. The
question is why. Do you have any information to offer as to
what the problems are?
Mr. Van Tuyn. I believe it is actually two questions, Mr.
Chairman. One is, why did it decline and the second very
important question is what is inhibiting its recovery. What we
are talking about here is the recovery of the Steller sea lion,
and what the scientists have said is that the pollock fishery
is inhibiting the recovery of the Steller sea lion. That is in
essence what they are saying, and this is the food stress issue
that has come up. In fact, if you look at the peer review,
while it was really unnecessary, its conclusions support 100
percent what we are saying, which is that the pollock fishery
jeopardizes the Steller sea lion and adversely modifies its
critical habitat, and in the context of recovery that is what
needs to change.
Mr. Saxton. Let me ask a question, Mr. Van Tuyn, to you
first and anyone else can comment who wishes to. This is a
chart which shows from 1989 through 1998 the estimated
population of the Steller sea lion goes up to a point and then
decreases, and by coincidence or something, the decrease in
population seems to be synonymous with the closure of the
fishery. Is there an explanation that you can offer for that?
Mr. Van Tuyn. Mr. Chairman, the type of----
Mr. Saxton. In closed areas I am reminded.
Mr. Van Tuyn. Sure, and if you look over a significantly
longer period of time what you see in the areas where there has
been no trawling, in southeast Alaska, for example, the Steller
sea lion populations have been stable for quite some time. If
you look in the areas where there has been heavy trawling, we
have noticed this 80-plus percent decline in Steller sea lion
populations. Those numbers which look at over a longer period
of time than those reflected in that chart are scientifically--
I am not the scientist, I am only the lawyer--but are
scientifically more valid.
Mr. Saxton. As the Chairman would say if he were still
here, Ms. Stewart looks like she's aggravated.
Ms. Stewart. Yes. I listened to the instructions for
informing the Chair that I might want to respond earlier on.
You can make a lot of loose associations between bars on a
graph and what might have happened. I think for us, comparing
the western/central Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea to the
eastern Gulf actually raises more questions. The eastern Gulf
has a very small pollock population. If they have the kind of
pollock population we have, likely they would have the same
problems with Stellers that we have is a conclusion I could
draw. Pollock is not a significant component of the ecosystem
in southeastern.
Southeastern has a more stable crab population than we
have. They have more stable herring populations than we have.
Southeastern is apparently part of a different ecosystem, and I
am glad for them. I live in Juneau. I get fresh seafood
whenever I want it. That is a thrill for me. I think we noticed
an even more interesting trend, and this is what disturbs us in
terms of the battle that we all seem to be locked in trying to
find somebody to blame for the current Steller sea lion
decline.
Among people who oppose trawling for a variety of reasons,
it looks good to try and hang this one on the trawl industry.
The trawl industry didn't start off at the peak of that
population and then drive it down. Other things seemed to be in
play. We have a long-time series of data from Pavlof Bay, which
is the Aleutians East Borough. Pavlof Bay at one time during
this period of time Al mentioned, during the shrimp and crab
days, was predominated by capelin and shrimp in the biomass
there. This is data looked at by a bird biologist at USGS
wondering about the decline of seabirds in the same area, and
pollock were down on that X axis, laying flat almost, right on
the line.
So when you watch that chart, all of the sudden you see
this really smooth but precipitous decline of capelin. Capelin
were not commercially fished by anybody. There were no markets
for them or obviously people would have fished them. This
wasn't some conscientious choice people made. Shrimp followed
that same line downhill. Shrimp were heavily exploited at the
same time. Their decline didn't occur any more steeply or any
differently from the capelin decline, and as that slope went
like this, the pollock numbers came up like this. So that
today's data indicate for Pavlof Bay we have a roughly even
biomass, but the construction of that biomass is inverted from
what it was in the earlier days.
We find these relationships interesting and certainly worth
pursuing. If that is the problem, if there is some cyclical
nature to pollock-salmon associations, shellfish-capelin
association, surely those will have effects on directed
commercial fisheries in those species and specifically on
animals like seabirds, Steller sea lions, harbor seals, beluga
whales that depend more heavily on those high fat, high
energetic fish. Those are the kinds of things we want to look
at.
It doesn't mean that we might not want to protect the
population of animals that Stellers are eating today. They
can't find capelin, they have to eat something, and it may be
pollock, but we want a better picture, a longer-term
understanding of where we are going so that when we get into
these cycles, we have some ability to predict what is a useful
response, how can we act in a way that is going to be
responsible toward sea lions, that is going to be responsible
toward fishermen who live in the area and depend on the area,
particularly Native fishermen, instead of deciding that we
don't like a particular style of fishing and this looks like a
good way to end it.
I think that is the point all of us have been trying to
make here. This is too important an issue to get hung up on
simple answers where you can link up something based on very
little data.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Mr. Owletuck, in one of your previous statements you
mentioned that the National Marine Fisheries Service would be
well served to take more stock of Native knowledge. Is there
anything in your knowledge or in Native knowledge, as you put
it, that would indicate that there had been Steller cycles
previously in history?
Mr. Owletuck. Mr. Chairman, when questions of that nature
present themselves, what comes to my mind is the fact that
anthropologists from such esteemed universities such as Harvard
go through the jungles of South America and they consult with,
quote, unquote, witch doctors or elders for their
pharmaceutical knowledge, and likewise, many Native communities
in Alaska wish to have scientists who come into their
communities, or biologists, consult with them and their elders
who have generations of what scientists would call anecdotal
observations of their environment, and their intimate knowledge
of their environment can and has in other parts of the world
contributed to scientific knowledge. As a matter of fact, in
Alaska, scientists who are involved in arctic research are
starting to publish findings that confirm what elders have been
telling them for years prior to their published findings.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. But do you have any knowledge of the
cyclical patterns that have occurred, cyclical patterns that
data can point to? Mr. Burch is not looking aggravated.
Mr. Burch. We had a person on Kodiak that was in charge of
the archaeological digs on one of the traditional villages
there on the island where the old village is. They dug back
about 400 or 500 years in the Midden Heaps there, and there was
a definite shift. The village would shift between salmon and
marine mammals. Dr. Rich Kenech, he is now out in Dutch Harbor
working in that area. I don't know if he has documented any
food pattern shifts there, but he definitely did on Kodiak. So
there has been prior shifts.
Mr. Saxton. Well, thank you very much. I have learned a lot
today, and I am sure that others have as well. I want to thank
you all for being here and for travelling so far to do so. You
have made a real contribution to our knowledge, and we thank
you for that. The Members may have some additional questions,
and if there are any, we will submit them to you in writing,
and the hearing record will remain open for 30 days in order to
give you adequate time to respond.
I would also like to ask unanimous consent at this point to
include all Members' statements in the record. Thank you very
much for coming and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
[The background memorandum prepared by the Subcommittee on
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans follows:]
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:]
STATEMENT OF I.L. BOYD
1. Preamble
1.1. This comment is based around the questions put to the
independent Scientific Panel that was constituted by the North
Pacific Fisheries Management Council to review the Biological
Opinion issued by NMFS on 3 December 1998. The Opinion
concerned authorization of Atka mackerel and walleye pollock
fisheries in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands fishing grounds
and the walleye pollock fishery in the Gulf of Alaska. Although
invited to participate, other commitments did not permit me to
sit on this panel.
1.2 The comment also forms a written response to an
invitation to appear as a possible witness before the
Congressional hearing of the House Resources Committee on 20
May 1999. Again, due to other commitments, I was unable to take
up this invitation.
1.3. Declaration of interests. This comment is a personal
point of view. It does not necessarily represent the views of
my employer. There will also be no financial consequence for me
whatever decisions are made about the fisheries management
actions being proposed in the Opinion. I have received no
payment for this comment and I have no affiliation, income or
other association with any U.S. government agency, the fishing
industry or any non-governmental organization that has an
interest in this issue. My interests are purely academic.
Question 1. Do the best available scientific and commercial
data in the opinion support a conclusion that the pollock
fisheries compete with the western population of Steller sea
lions?
2. Sub-question 1.1 Were the best scientific and commercial
data available considered in addressing the issue of potential
competition between Steller sea lions and the pollock
fisheries?
2.1 The opinion is a reasonably thorough review of the
literature and available data. It is built upon the twin
pillars of opinion that Steller sea lions are suffering food
deprivation indicated by poor body condition and that the major
demographic impact of this is observed amongst juveniles.
However, the Opinion could have amplified key issues relating
to the level of confidence that one can place in supporting
data and, in particular, it could have done a better job of
identifying critical gaps in basic knowledge. Some of these can
be summarized as follows:
(i) Current estimates of Steller sea lion population trends
are, to an important degree, uncertain. While there is without
doubt a continuing overall decline in numbers in the western
population, the rate of decline is inconsistent among regions
and in some parts of the western population there would even
appear to be a slight increase in numbers.
(ii) The data used to build many of the current ideas about the
causes of the decline in Steller sea lions (high juvenile
mortality, poor body condition) are now somewhat out-dated
(collected in the 1970s-1980s). The demographic and
physiological indices derived from these data have specific
problems associated with them, especially in relation to how
well they represented the population they were taken from, even
at the time the samples were obtained.
(iii) The Opinion, in general, ignores evidence that does not
provide positive support for the main hypotheses. For example,
despite recent research efforts that were designed to target
sensitive periods of the reproductive cycle, there is no
evidence that adult females or their pups suffer reduced body
condition. Although, for practical reasons, these studies were
restricted to rather narrow time periods within the
reproductive cycle, the studies were designed around the
responses of related pinnipeds to known periods of food
deprivation. The fact that no evidence of either acute or
chronic food deprivation has been detected seems not to have
resulted in an adjustment the opinion expressed by NMFS.
(iv) Insufficient attention may have been given to parallel
studies of related pinnipeds. Steller sea lions are
particularly difficult to study so it seems reasonable that
NMFS should draw as much information as possible from studies
of other pinnipeds that have general implications. For example,
information about foraging ranges shows that pinnipeds
generally forage over much greater distances and are apparently
more able to move in directed ways to foraging grounds than had
generally been expected in the past. Set in this context, it is
therefore possible that the concepts of critical habitat and
localized depletion as presented in the Opinion require to be
updated.
(v) Although studies of diet have taken place and these are
useful, knowledge of the diet of Steller sea lions is still not
very substantial, especially from the GOA and BSAI. Diet
sampling is known to be biased and it could be argued that the
way in which diet has been assessed to date was likely to show
that Steller sea lions depended on pollock because samples have
mainly been obtained from locations adjacent to known areas of
pollock concentration. The important question is, how
representative is this of the diet of the population as a whole
and especially of the diet at critical phases of the annual or
life cycle?
(vi) The Opinion could have done more to highlight the
potential interpretations of the diet information. The fact
that sea lions and the fishery apparently take pollock of a
similar size range does indeed provide evidence of overlap and
of potential competition, but it also could be used to suggest
that there is no competitive exclusion of sea lions and that
sea lions are not having any trouble competing with the
fishery. If the fishery really does deplete the major size
classes it takes then we would expect sea lions to concentrate
their predation upon the size classes that are not fished so
heavily. Perhaps Fig. 40b provides some supporting evidence for
this?
2.2. Several important statements within section 5 of the Opinion
appear not to be well supported by data. These include:
P99, paragraph 2. There is general scientific agreement that
the decline of the western population of Steller sea lions
results primarily from declines in the survival of juvenile
Steller sea lions. While it is true that the observed
population decline could, in theory, be due to reduced juvenile
survival, there is very little evidence for this. In fact,
populations are more sensitive to adult female survival so
there are also good theoretical reasons for suggesting that a
smaller reduction in this parameter could have resulted in the
decline, although evidence is also lacking for this. Again, the
data used to derive this conclusion are somewhat out of date
and of questionable quality.
P99, paragraph 2. There is also general scientific agreement
that the cause of the decline in the survival of juvenile
Steller sea lions probably has a dietary or nutritional cause.
Again, the evidence for this is lacking and, as stated above,
if one weighs up the evidence supporting such a statement with
the evidence against, it would really be impossible to derive
such a sweeping conclusion. However, it does remain as a
primary hypothesis.
P99, paragraph 5. There seems to be general agreement in the
scientific community that the western population of Steller sea
lions would fare better on a more diverse diet consisting of
herring, capelin, or eulachon. Beyond a few inconclusive pilot
studies of captive sea lions, no evidence exists to support
such a strong statement.
P101, paragraph 4. The winter months are an important foraging
periods for Steller sea lions because their greater metabolic
demands during the harsh winter period increase their energy
demands and make them more sensitive to reductions in prey
availability. Also see item (a) in paragraph 2 on page 102. The
energy demands of Steller sea lion in winter have never been
measured. I would not dispute the idea that the winter months
are likely to be an important foraging period, but we really do
not know anything about relative sensitivities to prey
availability at different times of year in any pinniped. These
types of animals exhibit behavioral and physiological
mechanisms that can be used to balance energy budgets
throughout periods of fluctuating prey abundance.
P108, paragraph 3. . . . seem to rely on aggregations of
walleye pollock. While there are dietary studies that support
the view that Steller sea lions feed mainly on pollock in some
parts of their range, there is no evidence that they require
aggregations of pollock.
P85, paragraph 4. . . . but the effect [of intentional take of
Steller sea lions] would not account for the total decline of
the western population. There is little evidence to support
this statement. If one adds up all the records of intentional
kill there is a shortfall and these numbers do not account for
all the decline. However, there appears to have been a culture
of extermination directed towards the Steller sea lion in
Alaska and we have to accept that the records of intentional
killing may fall well short of the true levels of killing that
took place through the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the anecdotal
descriptions of what went on are, frankly, shocking if they are
to be believed.
P71, paragraph 2. I feel that the way in which the potential
impact of the subsistence harvest has been portrayed diminishes
its potential significance. There are few management options
available to improve the lot of the Steller sea lion. Stopping
the intentional killing is perhaps the most obvious, easily
implemented and immediate action that could be taken. The value
of 6 percent given in this paragraph is misleading. If one
considers this as a proportion of the mortality that is
actually causing decline then the percentage taken in a
subsistence harvest is closer to 15 percent.
P102, paragraph 4. As a result, there is a high risk that the
western population of Steller sea lions could become extinct
within the foreseeable future if their decline is not abated
and their rate of increase is not improved. On the surface,
this is a reasonable statement, but it ignores some of the
basic principles of population regulation and, to a degree, it
contradicts the food-limitation hypotheses that is clearly
being pursued as a policy by NMFS. If food is the limiting
factor, then we would expect that, through the processes of
density-dependence, the population would self regulate to match
its food supply. Although unpredictable population fluctuations
can occur because of the intrinsic dynamics, in general, we
would expect the population to stabilize at a reduced level, if
it was being regulated by a density-dependent process. What
this statement in the Opinion is implying is that NMFS does not
believe that a density-dependent process is operating which
suggests to me that they believe that it is not just food
depletion that is responsible for the decline of Steller sea
lions.
2.3. The final statement I have highlighted above in section 2.2
indicates a further philosophical flaw. On P100, NMFS provides the
three assumptions that, in their view, require to be addressed by the
Opinion. To my mind, a central assumption must also be that Steller sea
lion populations will exhibit classical density-dependence. I have
found no acknowledgment within the Opinion that this is a possibility.
As a result, it would appear that little research has taken place to
examine the population data for evidence of density-dependence. In my
view, it is remarkable that the decline in the Steller sea lion has
continued in a sustained manner for so long. This suggests several
possible processes:
(i) The population is continuing to track a resource that is in
long-term decline.
(ii) Because of time lags and difficulties with collecting high
quality population data (and perhaps because nobody has
looked), density-dependent recovery/stabilization of the
population is already under way but cannot be detected at
present.
(iii) The population is being regulated by a factor that is
insensitive to density.
2.4. Item (i) could result from long-term changes in the
environment that are being tracked by sea lions or from a sustained
increase in fishing pressure on the food resources that support Steller
sea lions. I see no evidence for a long-term, sustained increase in
fishing pressure, except perhaps in terms of the apparent increased
localization of the fishery around possible critical habitat,
especially in the BSAI region. Conversely, there is evidence of a
proximate change in the environment, although how this impacts Steller
sea lions is uncertain. Item (ii) requires to be eliminated by
improving the population data and revisiting its analysis. Item (iii)
is the most problematical possible underlying cause of the decline
because there are few factors that are completely insensitive to
density. Two such factors are pollution and predation by a numerous and
powerful predator that regards Steller sea lions as a secondary or
tertiary prey item and whose own population dynamics is unaffected by
whether or not Steller sea lions can be hunted. The only two groups of
predators that potentially fit this description are man and killer
whales.
3.Sub-question 1.2 Do the available scientific and commercial data
provide a reasonable scientific basis to conclude that the pollock
fisheries, if left unchanged, could reasonably be expected to
jeopardize the continued existence of the western population of Steller
sea lions?
3.1 Based on the arguments I have made above concerning density-
dependence and the fact that the functional relationship between
pollock and Steller sea lions is unknown, I think the answer to this
question would have to be a qualified no.
3.2. I do not believe that food depletion caused by a viable,
commercial and unsubsidized fishery, on its own, is likely to result in
the extinction of the Steller sea lion. In the worst case, it could
deplete the population to such an extent that it would then become
vulnerable to additional stresses, including natural disasters and by-
catch, that could cause extinction. In my view, so long as the fishery
was not subsidized, the fishery would go extinct long before the sea
lion.
3.3. It seems most probable that Steller sea lions, like most
pinnipeds, forage on the most abundant prey within their range. If the
current stock assessments for pollock are to be believed, then there
would appear to be sufficient pollock for sea lions. It is possible
that sea lions rely on locating prey patches and if a fishery reduces
the frequency of patches in the environment or the quality for sea
lions (note may be different from their size), then they may have
trouble balancing their energy budgets at critical times. However,
there are several lines of evidence that do not support this argument,
even though it is an area that merits much more theoretical and
practical research. These are:
(i) If sea lions relied on locating prey patches, we might
expect a strong interaction between fishing vessels and sea
lions (as happens between Hooker's sea lions and pelagic trawl
squid fisheries in New Zealand). The logic for this is that
fishing vessels will predate patches which should also attract
sea lions and also, in the eyes of a sea lion, some of the
densest aggregations of pollock to be found will be at the back
of fishing vessels. As far as I am aware there is no strong
interaction between fishing vessels and sea lions. An
explanation for this may be that, due to many decades of
depredation by man of sea lions around fishing vessels, there
has been very strong selection for vessel avoidance by sea
lions, assuming that such a feature could be an inherited
trait.
(ii) Probably the most critical nutritional phase in the life-
history of Steller sea lions is early lactation when mothers
(the reproductively active segment of the population, which is
critical to the dynamics of the population) are restricted to
foraging within a specific radius of the breeding rookeries. At
all other times they are free, at least in theory, to move to
where the food is. Thus, even if patch distribution is altered
to the detriment of sea lions, they have flexibility in where
and how they forage. Experimental studies both in pinnipeds and
other predators show that these predators have quite remarkable
flexibility and are rarely bound to a stereotypic pattern of
behavior. During early lactation, when this flexibility is
greatly reduced resulting in potentially greater sensitivity to
the distribution of food, the current data do not suggest that
mothers are encountering nutritional stress.
3.4. The Opinion did not appear to contain any statement about the
probable social and financial costs of the proposed RPAs. In my view,
it is very difficult to assess the validity of RPAs without these. For
example, if the net cost to the industry of introducing the RPAs was
negligible then, even without supporting biological data, they could be
considered to be reasonable and prudent. Conversely, if they resulted
in severe financial or social distress then one may not come to the
same conclusion.
4. Sub-question 1.3 Do the available scientific and commercial data
provide a reasonable scientific basis for the conclusion that the
pollock fisheries, if left unchanged, could reasonably be expected to
adversely modify the critical habitat of Steller sea lion?
4.1. Much of my response to sub-question 1.2 is also relevant to the
assessment of effects on critical habitat. The jury is still out on
exactly what ``critical habitat'' Steller sea lions require. Our's is
still a very land-based view of these animals.
5. Question 2. If you conclude that the available data and analysis
support the conclusion that the pollock fisheries could reasonably be
expected to either jeopardize the continued existence of the Steller
sea lion or adversely modify its critical habitat, then are the
principles for establishing the RPAs adequately supported by the
available scientific and commercial data?
The Opinion provides the logic for the proposed RPAs. However,
since little is known about how either the spatial or temporal
distribution of pollock affects Steller sea lions then there seems to
be little scientific evidence to underpin the RPAs. Nevertheless, if
one wishes to adopt a cautious approach in a situation where there is
almost no information then the RPAs, as proposed here, would appear to
be reasonable. In particular, preventing extreme spatial and temporal
concentration of fishing effort would appear to be a prudent action,
even if there is little foundation for this in the scientific data.
In my view, the central questions are, what level of risk is there
associated with continuing with the present fisheries policy and how
would this be changed by the recommended RPAs? As I have indicated, I
believe the level of risk associated with the current policy is likely
to be low because there is no strong evidence linking the decline in
Steller sea lion abundance with the pollock fishery. Unfortunately, it
is impossible to formally quantify the risk involved.
5.3. Nevertheless, the decline in the population of Steller sea lions
has, almost without doubt, multiple causes, with many different factors
contributing to the decline. The strength of the contributing factors
will also vary in space and time and it may not be sensible to imagine
that a single dominant factor will emerge from well designed research.
Moreover, even if such a factor did emerge, it may be beyond our
capabilities to do much about it. Manipulating the fishery is one of
the few tools we have available to us and the current RPAs are an
honest attempt by NMFS to satisfy the demands of its many constituents.
5.4. As stated in 3.4, the validity of the proposed RPAs really depends
on the financial and social cost-benefit analysis. If this has been
done, then it does not appear to have been made available in the
current documentation. Therefore, it really is impossible to judge the
meaning of ``reasonable'' in the context of these RPAs.
6. Sub-question The views of the panel are solicited as to other
approaches that could be considered by the Council for the longer term,
and that would still be supported by the available scientific and
commercial data?
6.1. The problem with the RPAs as they stand is that they are a shot in
the dark. There is no way of properly assessing either if they are a
reasonable approach or their subsequent effectiveness. They are only
supported by simple conceptual models with no predictive capability. If
they are implemented then it should be understood that they are being
carried out because there is a perception that something has to be done
to alleviate the decline of the Steller sea lion, not because they have
a reasonable chance of succeeding in their objective. The currently
proposed RPAs may help our consciences but they are much less likely to
help Steller sea lions.
6.2. In reality, whatever the root cause of the decline in the Steller
sea lion population is, there are relatively few factors that managers
have the power to control. Since it appears that by-catch and illegal
hunting may be under control, reducing either fishing pressure on their
food source and legal hunting are about all that remains to be
manipulated.
6.3. I have already gone on record as saying that the most immediate
and reasonable prudent action that could be taken would be to stop all
hunting of Steller sea lions. Unlike the RPAs proposed in the current
Opinion, we know this will have an immediate impact on the number of
Steller sea lions. If society values Steller sea lions enough, then it
may be reasonable to compensate local peoples for the loss or
suspension of their traditional right to hunt Steller sea lions.
6.4. In the meantime, much more could be done to examine ways of
modelling the interactions between Steller sea lions and fisheries with
a view to developing properly constructed management strategies that,
if applied in the long-term, might be both effective and be seen to be
effective. This would also provide a consistent framework within which
the fishery could plan its investment and operational strategy.
6.5. The Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan has manifestly failed to
achieve its objectives, despite much investment in research. At the
same time, one of the best regulated and most thoroughly investigated
fisheries in the world has been managed with little formal recognition
of the need to include competing top-food-chain predators as explicit
parts of the pollock stock assessment models. We have the intellectual
foundations to achieve such an integration but institutional barriers
prevent meaningful progress. If the United States wishes science to
begin to provide practical, strategic solutions to the problem of
Steller sea lion interactions with pollock then it has to break these
barriers down.
6.6. In the end, the problem of what should be done to help Steller sea
lions out of the hole they are in is not one that science can solve. It
is a matter for the democratic process to decide if people place a
higher value on having Steller sea lions than cheap fish or if they are
willing to take the risk involved in trying to have both.
______
Statement of Rick E. Marks, Sea Lion Caucus
1. The agency seems to have made a very sudden decision
that the pollock fishery constitutes jeopardy to Steller sea
lion recovery. In fact, the restrictions to the fishery were
imposed by emergency rule. Hasn't the agency continuously
determined that the fishery did not pose a risk to Steller
recovery? What occurred that not only changed the agency's
decision on jeopardy, but also did so rapidly enough that the
agency had to act under an emergency rule?
To date, the agency HAS NEVER explained which specific
changes in the fishery precipitated emergency actions to
protect the continued existence/recovery of sea lions. There
were no apparent, significant deviations looming for the 1999
fishery compared to other years (i.e. 1991, 1996, 1998) when
``no jeopardy'' findings were recorded by the agency. In our
opinion, the ONLY immediate difference was the lawsuit filed by
the conservation community. There is simply no rational
alternative explanation available.
Regarding the timing issue, the agency actually had enough
advance notice to avoid the ``emergency'' situation. In fact,
the agency was formally served on April 15, 1998 and on notice
prior to that when the environmental community filed an intent
to sue. Clearly, the agency was well aware for a MINIMUM of six
months that problems existed with the management of SSL. Yet as
late as October 1998, the Council was not actively considering
new SSL mitigation measures.
2. Your testimony talks about stakeholder involvement in
NMFS'decision-making process. Has there been any stakeholder
process in this case?
NMFS SSL stakeholder process is NON-EXISTENT. During the
December Council meeting, NMFS staff was very clear, stating
that the agency was both the ``acting'' and ``offending''
agency and not required to consider any outside mitigation
alternatives. Agency staff also indicated the SSL Recovery Team
was NOT consulted on the RPA's. The Council became involved
only very late in the process and under such an imposing time
constraint that it was severely restricted in what alternatives
it could consider.
The normal conduits for public involvement are through the
Council public comment process and the SSL Recovery Team. Since
both of those options were not readily available, public access
was handicapped from the start.
Furthermore, according to Secretarial Order #3206, the
agency is required to work closely with Native entities to
ensure their natural resource interests are given due
consideration. Since there was no stakeholder process, the
Native entities were not afforded consideration pursuant to
this SO.
One way to address the lack of process and public input is
to mandate development of a ``Take Reduction Team-style''
approach for SSL in Alaska. TRT's were a component of the 1994
MMPA amendments designed to address commercial fishing-mammal
interactions. This concept, already in practice, could be
adopted for the SSL situation. It would increase stakeholder
input, improve communication, and ensure that all information
is given thorough consideration.
3. Under the normal ESA process, a Biological Opinion will
contain an economic analysis. Does this Biological Opinion
contain such an analysis?
The December 3, 1998 Biological Opinion does not contain an
economic analysis component. Section 5.0 titled ``Effects Of
The Actions'' appears to be the appropriate section for the
community impact analysis. However, this section is devoted
solely to the impacts of the actions on sea lions, rather than
a more comprehensive approach including both impacts on SSL AND
the human environment.
4. Your testimony discusses the Scientific and Statistical
Committee (SSC) of the North Pacific Council. What is this
body, and is it made up primarily of people with scientific
backgrounds? How did the SSC feel about the NMFS research
program and the speed of the decision that management of the
pollock fishery needed to be changed?
SSC's provide scientific advice to the regional management
councils. Section 302(g) of the MSFCMA specifies that each
council shall establish an SSC to assist in the development,
collection, and evaluation of statistical, biological,
economic, social, and other relevant information for
consideration in the FMP development and amendment processes.
The North Pacific Council's SSC is composed of thirteen
members representing the following: NMFS' Alaska and Juneau
Fisheries Science Centers; USU, Dept. of Economics; UAF, School
of Fisheries/Ocean Sciences; ADF&G; USFWS; Univ. of California
at Davis, Dept. of Agricultural Economics; UA Juneau, Center
for Ocean Studies; Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlife; and the
International Halibut Commission. Despite the impressive
membership, this body was not consulted to any significant
extent.
The North Pacific Council's SSC clearly articulated its
concerns regarding the pace of the process and lack of sound
scientific information upon which to build sensible mitigation
measures. Despite the fact that the fishery is managed by the
Council with scientific input from the SSC, no scientific
information was provided by the agency.
The SSC minutes from the December 1998 meeting accurately
reflect the problem--``Although the SSC was requested to
comment on appropriate actions that might be taken at this
meeting to meet the RPA's for the 1999 fishery, the SSC
declines to do so. We were not presented with information to
complete such a task.''
At the same meeting, the SSC expressed its concerns
regarding the quality of the data by stating ``The SSC again
shares the general discomfort over the large amount of
uncertainty in the data and large data gaps. Uncertainty allows
many approaches and interpretations, none of which can be
overwhelmingly supported by rigorous science at this time. . .
.''
5. In your opinion, was the agency helpful in developing
alternatives to the ``Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives''?
During the December 1998 Council meeting, agency
representatives were willing to discuss mitigation measures
with constituent groups. Unfortunately, the agency
representatives present at the meeting were not the decision-
makers. Hence, it was very difficult to get a read on exactly
where the agency was at with respect to mitigation proposals.
Furthermore, members of the SSC, full Council and public
were totally unaware of their role and the degree of
flexibility available to them. The agency vacillated with
respect to the Council's role and direct, clear communication
was not evident.
A case in point--the perceived lack of flexibility is
evident in that the Council's RPA recommendation included a
four-season fishing strategy for the GOA. This approach was
previously implemented and RESCINDED by the Council due to
management complications and ineffectiveness. If the council
was afforded any amount of flexibility or the agency was fully
and openly cooperative, the final RPA's would not have included
a provision previously deemed unworkable by the Council.
We conclude from this result the agency (a) did not fully
inform the Council of the scope of available flexibility, and
(b) had pre-determined to a large extent, the final RPA's.
6. Were the goals of the RPA's clear enough that the
Council and industry could develop alternatives which would
accomplish the same goals as the draft RPA's?
YES & NO. Yes, the draft RPA's were specific in that
agency's central objective was to disperse and delay the
spatial and temporal aspects of the fishery. Although this
approach was developed in the absence of any direct correlation
between fishing and SSL, the agency was clear in its intent.
The problems occurred because there was insufficient time,
no supporting data, and no process by which the agency,
Council, and public could examine impacts of past and future
measures as well as current and historical SSL distribution and
pollock fishing patterns to aid in the development of sensible
mitigation measures to address the main objective.
In fact, preliminary 1999 catch and survey data already
indicate the RPA's may have concentrated the fishery in space
and time, exactly OPPOSITE from agency intentions. The
groundfish fleet that was spread around Kodiak Island during
the 1991-1998 seasons, fished in fewer areas in a more
concentrated fashion during the first 1999 season. If this
characteristic continues for the duration of the year, the
RPA's will have had the opposite effect and we will be no
closer to understanding the impacts of these measures on SSL.
It begs the question, ``Does the agency have any clue how it is
impacting SSL and the fishery-dependent communities?''
7. Do you think it is appropriate that the Council was
involved in making the decisions to alter management of the
pollock fishery to mitigate for Steller sea lion protection?
YES. The SSL RPA's were directed at the groundfish fishery
and implemented as emergency amendments to the standing FMP.
Since the Council manages the groundfish fishery, it should be
involved in the development/implementation of RPA's. In
addition, the Council has the necessary expertise to make such
decisions if given adequate data and opportunity.
Unfortunately, we do not believe the process afforded full and
efficient Council input.
8. Do you think that there is a problem when the ``action
agency'' and the ``consulting agency'' involved in a Section 7
consultation are the same agency? Do you think there should be
some kind of peer review required in such situations?
YES, This is a very serious problem which must be
addressed. The SSL situation is a perfect example of how the
system is broken. By not requiring some form of review, the
system will continue to expose the agency to litigation.
The agency currently has a policy (joint, with the USFWS)
on peer review of ESA activities. In the case of SSL, NMFS
merely chose not to follow the policy. Agency staff indicated
the policy applies only to listing actions and no other
activities under the Act. Clearly, the agency has
misinterpreted their own policy, particularly in instances like
SSL where the quality of the science is in question (see 59 FR
34270, July 1, 1994, Section (B)(1) titled ``Special
Circumstances'').
In the case of SSL, this scenario allowed the agency to
dismiss alternative hypotheses absent research and prevented
scientific input from oceanographers, independent scientists,
and both fishery and avian biologists. To our knowledge only
NMFS marine mammal biologists and protected species policy
makers were utilized in the development of the RPA's. This
cloistered process prevents consideration of the best available
scientific information which is in direct conflict with the
statute.
In our opinion, legislation which permits autonomy by a
single department within a single Federal agency is seriously
flawed. It exposes the agency to litigation and its
constituency to management by whipsaw. The simple fact that the
agency imposed a second round of intrusive management measures
and is considering a third without ever having assessed the
effectiveness of the first set of measures is a clear
indication we have a serious problem.
At a minimum, an agency in the position of ``consulting
with itself'' should be required to consult with a second
Federal agency to allow for appropriate checks and balances. At
best, there should be a peer review required in all such
situations and especially where the science is seriously in
question.
9. Do you believe that all haul out areas should be
surrounded by buffer zones? If not, why not?
NO. The agency, in setting selection criteria for haul out
protection, has overextended its application of the
``Precautionary Principle.'' First, rather than protect every
single site that ever exhibited a specified level of use post-
1979, the agency should have adopted a more common-sense
approach based on current ecosystem conditions and SSL site-
dependence, fishing activity, and SSL population trends,
balanced with human safety and community economic concerns.
For example, the Ugak site off the eastern edge of Kodiak
Island has never functioned as a major SSL haul out during the
past 40 years. In fact, since 1989, only 16 individual animals
were observed at this site (15 in 1992, and 1 in 1994). Even
though this site is not currently being used by SSL, it was one
of first three sites closed by the agency's RPA's for the 1999
fishing season. Similar situations exist for sites located at
Cape Barnabas, Rugged Island, and Cape Ikolik haulouts slated
for closure in the year 2000.
There are several haul outs where SSL numbers have
fluctuated without trend (i.e. Cape Ugat, Gull Point, Sea Lion
Rocks) or increased (i.e. Mitrofania) in the presence of
trawling. It is unclear how a Federal agency required to use
the best available science could justify closing these key
fishing areas.
Second, closing all remaining key near shore fishing areas
virtually eliminates all research opportunities to assess SSL-
fishing interactions. A research plan utilizing these haul outs
should be developed to assess the efficacy of past and pending
mitigation measures.
10. Do you believe that the aerial surveys of selected
rookeries adequately reflect Steller sea lion populations?
NOT EXACTLY. The methodology for estimating population size
for the eastern and western stocks of SSL is inconsistent. The
eastern stock is estimated by direct counts on the rookeries.
The western stock estimates are derived from counts on a subset
of rookery ``trend'' sites.
This discrepancy resulted in the November 20, 1998
consistency recommendation by the Alaska Scientific Review
Group to the NMFS. The AKSRG recommended that the methodology
used to calculate the western stock be the sum of direct counts
of adults, juveniles, and pups at all sites. The AKRSG also
stated that the resulting population estimate should not be
reduced for Nmin (i.e. ``Minimum population estimate''
calculated first by estimating the minimum stock size and then
reducing the population estimate further to assure that true
population size is equal to or less than, the estimate). These
adjustments would ensure consistency between the two regions.
There is no formal indication the agency intends to adjust the
assessment process to reflect these recommendations.
Members of the coastal communities have also expressed
concerns that many animals may be unaccounted for during the
assessment process. Members of the Native communities believe
that NMFS, working cooperatively to incorporate local
knowledge, will produce more accurate assessment results.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the SSL Caucus, thank you for
the opportunity to participate in this process and respond to
your follow-up questions.
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STATEMENT OF SIMEON SWETZOF, MAYOR, AND JOHN R. MERCULIEF, CITY
MANAGER, CITY OF SAINT PAUL, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to provide testimony on this issue of critical
importance for the community of 700 Pribilof Aleuts where we
live. The rich marine ecosystem around the Pribilofs supports
the largest concentrations of marine mammals, seabirds, and
fish stocks in the Northern Hemisphere. As a people whose
traditions and survival are bound to the marine wildlife
sustained by the Bering Sea, the Pribilof Aleuts are concerned
about the long-term future of the Steller sea lion and the
continued health of the Bering Sea fisheries and ecosystem. For
generations, Steller sea lions have been an important source of
food for Aleuts and other native peoples, and the traditions
involved in the subsistence hunt of sea lions and other species
are an important part of our culture.
In recent years the community of St. Paul has developed a
port and other infrastructure necessary to attract in-shore
processors and allow the development of a local fishery.
Located within 65 miles of more than 50 percent of the nation's
commercial fisheries, St. Paul's harbor is today one of the
busiest in Alaska and has become the second highest generator
of fish tax revenue for the State. Our small boat commercial
fishing fleet is one of the most successful in the State, in
terms of its ability to harvest the species it is allowed to
target. Improvements to the Harbor financed by the Federal,
state, and local governments, are underway which will further
enhance St. Paul's importance to the fishery.
As a result, the community of St. Paul, the State of
Alaska, and the Federal Government have an important economic
stake in the continued health of the Bering Sea's commercial
fisheries, the survival of threatened and endangered species
such as the Steller sea lion, and the management measures
implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and
the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (the Council) to
regulate the fisheries and the ecosystem.
The City of St. Paul has participated actively in recent
Council hearings on the management changes in the Bering Sea
pollock fishery recommended by NMFS to protect Steller sea
lions and other issues. At these hearings the Mayor of St. Paul
has provided testimony and community statements on behalf of
the Pribilof Aleuts and subsistence hunters urging NMFS, and
the Council, to act conservatively in implementing protection
measures that could adversely impact Alaska's fishermen, its
fishing industry, and fishery-dependent communities like St.
Paul.
This is particularly true when the causes impeding the
recovery of the Steller sea lion are not fully understood and
the scientific evidence is inconclusive. While these causes are
not completely understood, and may never be, given the array of
possible contributing factors, the community of St. Paul
supports: (1) increased funding for research into ecosystem
management, and (2) greater local participation in resource
management, including scientific research at the local level in
locations such as the Pribilofs that allow for the use of
native/traditional knowledge. We believe that a critical
component missing in NMFS' analysis and biological opinion are
the economic, cultural, and biological impacts of their actions
on local communities such as St. Paul, and the wealth of native
knowledge and local input that has been bypassed by NMFS
scientists and regulators. Focusing resources and attention on
the above two proposals will permit the development of adequate
responses that will possibly help to reverse the Steller sea
lion's decline and contribute to the general health of the
Bering Sea ecosystem. We urge you to consider them.
1. Increased Funding for Research:
The unique hydrophysical and biological processes
surrounding the Pribilof Islands create a marine ecosystem
which supports the largest populations of seabirds, marine
mammals, and fish stocks in the Northern Hemisphere. For this
reason, St. Paul Island is an ideal location for research and
studies on a local level to understand these processes and
develop effective resource management policies.
In the past, the City of St. Paul and the U.S. Department
of State have co-sponsored studies such as The Bering Sea
Ecosystem, a book prepared by the National Research Council in
1996 and the Pribilof Marine Ecosystem Research Progam by Dr.
Mikhail Flint of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Both studies
support the conclusion that a fisheries management regime that
considers the ecosystem as a whole, and is not framed in a
single species context, ensures sustainable commercial
fisheries and healthy marine mammal and seabird populations.
The focus of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management,
therefore, is to prevent the creation of imbalances in fish
stocks that in turn may impact and create imbalances in
predatory species such as Steller sea lions and affect the
long-term viability of the commercial fisheries.
Congress must remember that during the 1980's the City of
St. Paul was a leading voice in the Bering Sea calling for
ecosystem research and management. The City, in conjunction
with the State Department and some members of the environmental
community, faced the opposition of the fishing industry, the
Council, and even NMFS, to push through the National Research
Council study. Now that work is cited by everyone as the
starting point for fisheries research and policy-making in the
Bering Sea. The City of St. Paul has been a leader in the
effort to understand and manage these issues, and will continue
to be involved.
The City of St. Paul, moreover, supports further research
into the natural processes and dynamics of the Bering Sea and
Gulf of Alaska ecosystems, in order to shed light on phenomena
such as the ``regime shifts'' and predator-prey interaction.
For example, there have been higher than usual reported
incidences of killer whale attacks on sea lions and sea otters
and many have attributed the declining Steller sea lion
populations to these attacks. Very little is understood about
these interactions and their impact on the health of the
Steller sea lion population as a whole. Others have indicated
that subsistence hunting has impeded the recovery of Steller
sea lions. However, this disregards the fact that killer whales
and Native Alaskans have consumed Steller sea lions for
thousands of years and in doing so contributed to maintaining
healthy sea lion populations and keeping the ecosystem in
balance.
The small community of St. Paul has for years spent
considerable City funds to support studies in the
aforementioned areas and believes that they point the direction
as to how commercial fisheries can be sustainably managed to
the benefit of fishermen, coastal communities, industry, and
the ecosystem. These studies also indicate that we know very
little about the natural processes that govern the ecosystem.
For this reason we support and welcome increased funding by the
State and Federal administrations for research on ecosystem-
based management and the natural processes that govern the
ecosystem, including the area around the Pribilof Islands. Only
by understanding how the ecosystem functions can we hope to
develop the policies that are necessary to manage the
commercial fisheries sustainably and protect the health of
endangered species such as the Steller sea lion.
2. Local Participation and Use of Native/Traditional Knowledge:
Stewardship of marine wildlife, including Steller sea
lions, and marine fisheries must be improved by increasing
participation of Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska coastal
communities in policy and decision-making affecting these
resources. When coastal communities and their residents are
given a stake in the health of the resources in state and
Federal waters, long-term sustainability becomes an achievable
goal.
In the Pribilof Islands, the Ecosystem Conservation Office
has formed a Pribilof Islands Marine Mammal Commission to
promote proper subsistence hunting techniques, and encourage
the conservation of sea lions and other marine mammals through
traditional knowledge and scientific research. In addition, the
Ecosystem Conservation Office has developed co-management
agreements with NMFS to share responsibilities in the
management of Steller sea lions and Northern fur seals. The
people of St. Paul believe that co-management agreements may
present an effective way of protecting Steller sea lions on the
local level because they engage the local population in the
management and protection of species that are culturally and
economically valuable to the community, and allow for the
exchange of information between members of the community and
NMFS scientists.
With an important cultural and economic stake in the
protection and conservation of endangered or threatened Bering
Sea species, the Pribilof Aleuts support efforts to incorporate
Native concerns and knowledge into the decision-making process.
The people of my community have an extensive, generations-long,
body of knowledge regarding Steller sea lion behaviors, eating
habits, foraging areas, migration patterns, and rookeries that
has been often overlooked by NMFS and outside scientists.
For this reason we support partnering between Federal,
state and local agencies, environmental organizations,
community and Native organizations and scientists to
collaboratively develop plans to protect Steller sea lion
populations on a local level, and particularly in critical
habitat areas such as the Pribilof Islands. This plan must be
tailored to the area designated for protection as the factors
affecting sea lions may be different in diverse geographical
areas. Moreover, protection plans should incorporate and seek
ways of channeling, to the extent possible, the wealth of local
and traditional knowledge which exists in most Alaskan
communities but which is often disregarded or underutilized by
outside scientists.
3. Management of the Bering Sea Commercial Fisheries:
NMFS' biological opinion bases its recommended actions in
the pollock fishery on the argument that the fishing effort is
concentrated too intensively during the fall and winter seasons
in certain geographic areas, which include Steller sea lion
critical habitat and foraging areas. For this reason they
recommended that the Council implement measures that have
dispersed the pollock fishery temporally and spatially away
from the Aleutian Chain towards the central Bering Sea and the
Pribilof Islands.
One of St. Paul's future objectives is to develop
multispecies processing capability (including pollock) in-
shore. There are several advantages to this from the
perspective of the fishing industry and NMFS. Multispecies
processing capability on St. Paul Island would allow a portion
of the fishing fleet that has been dispersed by NMFS'
recommended actions to use St. Paul Island as a base, thereby
reducing costs, increasing efficiency (by reducing unproductive
delivery time), reducing dead loss, and increasing safety for
fishermen. Use of the St. Paul Harbor allows the intensive
fishery effort in the Bering Sea to be distributed throughout
the entire ecosystem in a manner that has less localized impact
on Steller sea lions, and other species, and is consistent with
NMFS' objectives. Finally, St. Paul sees multispecies
processing capability on the island as an important part of
bringing processing in-shore and developing sustainable
fisheries in a way that is consistent with the goals of the
Sustainable Fisheries Act and the American Fisheries Act.
Ultimately, conservation of the commercial fisheries,
seabirds, and marine mammals of the Bering Sea will be achieved
through management policies that promote in-shore processing,
local stewardship and co-management, an ecosystem approach to
the utilization of fisheries, and joint management of
straddling and migratory fish stocks with the Russian
Federation.
These are issues that the people of the Pribilofs have
advocated for years. The Pribilof Islands are literally in the
middle of these issues and are a key piece to: (1)
understanding the processes affecting the Bering Sea ecosystem
and (2) gauging the success of measures implemented to protect
the Steller sea lion and other species. The people of St. Paul
are aware of the importance of balancing the needs of the
subsistence hunters, the fishermen, the fishing industry, and
the ecosystem. We have done this balancing for hundreds of
years.
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Fisheries
Conservation, Wildlife, and Oceans Subcommittee, thank you for
this opportunity to provide written testimony on behalf of the
City of St. Paul. We look forward to discussing these issues
with you and your staffs.