State, partners ask ringed seal delisting

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said March 26 that the state, in partnership with the North Slope Borough, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, submitted a petition to the National Marine Fisheries Service requesting delisting of the Arctic subspecies of ring seal, currently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The state said that the petition for delisting presents evidence that the 2012 listing was made in error and cites new information and reanalysis of prior data.

“New information shows no evidence of declines in ringed seal populations,” Division of Wildlife Conservation Director Eddie Grasser said in the department’s release.

“The seals are handling current environmental changes well. ESA listings should be reserved for imperiled species not for species with healthy, robust populations that number in the millions,” he said.

The state listed made in the petition:

*The Arctic subspecies of ringed seal continues to occupy the entire circumpolar Arctic; the population is abundant and numbered in the millions.

*NMFS defined the “foreseeable future” as extending out to 2100 in the listing rule. The state said that period “is not as scientifically defensible as a period extending to 2055, based on three ringed-seal generation times.”

*NMFS lacked scientific information in 2012 to show how the population would respond to projected habitat declines, “or that the population will decline to the point of extinction even out to 2100.”

*Declines in sea ice habitat have been documented over the past several decades, but “this seal subspecies has shown no evidence of decline in body condition or measures of population health.”

*The petition also cites the best available current information as showing “ringed seals are resilient and adaptable to varying conditions across their enormous range and are likely to adapt to habitat conditions that change over time.”

*In summary the petition argues that maintaining the listing “particularly following the designation of critical habitat, will have significant consequences for the economy of the State and the traditional lifestyles of Alaska Natives.”

The state and co-petitioners are requesting that NMFS reassess listing and delisting factors; find the Arctic subspecies of ring seal does not meet the definition of threatened under the ESA; and delist the subspecies.

- KRISTEN NELSON