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NOAA seeks input on bowhead subsistence
The federal government is preparing an environmental impact statement to support annual quotas for bowhead whale subsistence harvest by Alaska Natives for 2013-17.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service said Sept. 22 that NOAA last prepared an EIS for this purpose in 2008 for the years 2008-12.
NOAA said its goal “is to accommodate federal trust responsibilities by recognizing cultural and subsistence needs of Alaska Natives to the fullest extent possible, while ensuring that any subsistence hunt of whales does not adversely affect the conservation of the whale stock.”
NOAA Fisheries grants a quota of bowhead whales for subsistence hunts to the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission under the authority of the International Whaling Commission, based on analysis in the EIS. The AEWC directly manages the subsistence hunts.
2,000-year hunt NOAA said Eskimos have hunted bowhead whales as they migrate along the coastline of Alaska in the spring and fall, and have done so for more than 2,000 years. Native subsistence hunters from 11 northern Alaska communities take less than 1 percent of the stock of bowhead whales each year, the agency said.
The scoping period for the EIS ends Oct. 31.
More information on the EIS is available on the website for the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region at http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/ or by contacting Steve Davis or Brad Smith at 907-271-5006.
NOAA Fisheries estimates the draft EIS will be available in April 2012.
—Petroleum News
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