NOAA to Study Ice Seals To Determine if Endangered

Sea Technology, May 2008

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service has accepted a petition from a California environmental group seeking protection under the Endangered Species Act for an ice seal called the ribbon seal that inhabits Alaska's Bering Sea.

"In addition [to] reviewing the ribbon seal, we are also preparing status reviews on bearded, spotted and ringed seals for possible listing," said Doug Mecum, acting administrator for the Alaska Region of NOAA's Fisheries Service. "While the four species of ice seals in Alaska all utilize various types of sea ice habitats, they use the ice in different ways. Therefore, careful status reviews of each species is warranted."

NOAA's Fisheries Service has until the end of this year to prepare a status review and make a decision whether to list the ribbon seals, so that species will be the initial focus of NOAA experts, according to officials.

In late December, the San Francisco, California-based Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Fisheries Service to list the ribbon seal as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The agency decided the petition provided enough information to indicate that action may be warranted.

NOAA's finding was based, in part, on predicted changes in ribbon seals' sea ice habitat as a result of global climate change, the high allowable seal harvest set by the Russian Federation in recent years, the potential impacts of oil and gas development and production in both the United States and Russia and the potential impacts of commercial fisheries and climate change on ribbon seal prey distribution and abundance.

Ribbon seals use the marginal sea ice zone in the Bering and Okhotsk seas for reproduction and molting and as a resting platform. In the summer and fall, they forage in the Bering and Chuckchi seas.