NMFS to hold hearings over seal listings

The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that it will hold public hearings in Anchorage, Barrow and Nome to gather comments on the proposed listings of ringed and bearded seals under the Endangered Species Act. The Anchorage hearing will take place on March 7, with the Barrow hearing scheduled for March 22; NMFS has not yet settled on a date for the Nome hearing.

Communities along the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea coasts will be able to teleconference into the Barrow hearing.

In 2008 the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned NMFS to list the seals, saying that global warming is melting the Arctic sea ice that the seals depend on for shelter and for raising their pups. The center later sued NMFS to force a listing decision. On Dec. 3, 2010, NMFS issued a notice proposing the listing of the seals as threatened.

NMFS now says that it is responding to requests for public hearings and that it has extended the original 60-day public comment period for the listing proposals: The comment period will now end on March 25. Written comments can be submitted to NMFS up to that date.

—Alan Bailey