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NMFS extends seal ESA listing decision Agency says it needs time to resolve disagreements over how much of a threat shrinking sea ice poses for ringed, bearded seals Alan Bailey Petroleum News
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service announced Dec. 12 that it is deferring by up to six months its final decisions on the Endangered Species Act listings of certain types of ringed and bearded seals. The seal species are highly dependent on Arctic sea ice which has been receding as a result of global warming.
Moves to list the seals have come amid a trend to try to use ESA listings to protect various ice-dependent animal species, on the assumption that the loss of sea-ice habitat will ultimately threaten the species’ existence. In 2008 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as threatened because of projected sea-ice loss.
Some Arctic communities and entities such as the State of Alaska, with economic interests in offshore Arctic resource development, worry about the potential impact of the listings on offshore Arctic activities and have objected to the listing moves as unwarranted, especially given the relative abundance of the various species involved.
2008 petition In 2008 the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned NMFS to list ringed, bearded and spotted seals as endangered or threatened. In October 2009 NMFS decided to list a population segment of spotted seals that lives in some Chinese and Russian waters but elected not to list the spotted seals that live in Alaska waters. In 2010 the agency proposed listing two types of bearded seal and four ringed seal subspecies. One of the types of bearded seal has a range that includes wide areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi, Bering and East Siberian seas, while one of the ringed seal subspecies, the Arctic ringed seal, lives throughout the Arctic Ocean region, with a habitat extending south into areas such as the Bering Sea.
After public comment periods for the proposed listings closed in March 2011 NMFS sent its proposed listing rules to four scientists with appropriate expertise, for independent reviews of the agency’s scientific data and assumptions. Three of those scientists sent back comments on the rules, with two of the scientists questioning the magnitude and immediacy of the threats posed to the seals by the projected drop in sea ice extent and in sea-ice snow cover, NMFS said Dec. 12.
Concerns expressed “Public comments raised similar concerns, including (comments) from the State of Alaska, certain tribal governments, Alaska Native organizations and organizations representing the Inuit in Canada; Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans; and Greenland’s Department of Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture,” NMFS wrote.
Given the substantial disagreements over model projections of future sea-ice and snow cover and the immediacy of threats posed to the seals, NMFS says that it is extending the deadlines for listing decisions to allow time to obtain additional data through special independent peer reviews, to resolve the disagreements. The agency will make the peer reviews available for public comment at dates to be announced in the Federal Register, the agency said.
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