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Ringed seal critical habitat proposed NMFS wants to designate the entire U.S. Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the northern Bering Sea as critical to the species’ survival Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Following the 2012 listing of the Arctic ringed seal as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service has now proposed a designation of critical habitat for the animals. The proposed critical habitat region encompasses the entirety of the U.S. Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and the northern part of the Bering Sea. Critical habitat features include the sea-ice habitat that the seals use for lairs, and for activities such as basking and molting; critical features also include the seals’ primary prey: Arctic cod, saffron cod, shrimps and amphipods.
Assuming that the critical habitat designation is finalized, any activity in the impacted region involving federal government actions such as federal permitting will trigger a consultation with the Fisheries Service to assess whether the activity may damage any of the critical habitat features. If a likely adverse impact is anticipated, the Fisheries Service will impose mitigation requirements to prevent the damage.
“After reviewing the best available information, our scientists identified the habitat features that are essential for sustaining Arctic ringed seals - a species that is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future due to climate change,” said NMFS Alaska Regional Administrator James Balsiger, when announcing the proposed designation on Dec. 2. “We look forward to hearing from members of the public on this proposal.”
Public comments on the proposed designation must be filed with the Fisheries Service by March 3.
Shrinking sea ice The ringed seal is one of a series of animal species that have been listed or considered for listing, not because of a current shortfall in their numbers, but because of a perceived threat from the impacts of global warming on the sea ice on which the animals depend.
Ringed seals nurse and protect their pups in snow caves, which are threatened by the late formation of ice in the fall, by rain in the late winter and by the early breakup of sea ice in the spring, the Fisheries Service says. A decline in snow depths is projected to result by the end of the century in depths that are too shallow for cave formation, the agency says.
Accordingly, the Fisheries Service’s proposed critical habitat region encompasses the entire area of ocean within the U.S. economic zone that can be covered with winter sea ice and where the ringed seals are found. Critical habitat within that region consists of sea ice appropriate for use by the seals for shelter and other activities, with the seals’ primary prey also seen as critical to the seals’ survival.
Economic impacts Under the terms of the Endangered Species Act the Fisheries Service must conduct an analysis of the economic impacts of its critical habitat designation. And, as in the habitat designation for the polar bear, another species listed under similar circumstances, the agency has claimed that the only cost of the habitat designation would consist of the cost of agency consultations that the designation would trigger. For the oil and gas industry, for example, the agency says that the critical habitat designation, in itself, will not cause any project modifications beyond those already required to mitigate adverse impacts on the seals.
The agency estimates the total cost of the critical habitat designation over 10 years as $1.3 million in 2012 dollars, with $356,000 of that cost to be carried by the Fisheries Service, $968,000 by private entities and $3,000 by local governments.
Concerns in Alaska Climate change related Endangered Species Act listings such as those of the polar bear and the ringed seal, with vast areas of critical habitat, have caused concern in Alaska because of worries about potential impacts on economic activities around the coast and offshore. Justifications of the listings depend on climate models that predict climate trends many years into the future.
“This is an unprecedented attempt to place restrictions on a larger than Texas-sized area of water surrounding our state,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in response to the announcement of the proposed ringed seal critical habitat. “I remain skeptical that the listing of ringed seals based on a 100-year weather projection was justified, and I am concerned that this designation would severely impact any economic development from Northwest all the way to our border with Canada.”
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