Vanishing Alaskan Sea Otters to Get Legal Protection

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, February 9, 2004 (ENS) - The Bush administration has proposed listing northern sea otters in southwest Alaska as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Conservation groups filed suit last year to force the move, which federal biologists say is needed to address a dramatic and accelerating decline in the population of the small furry marine mammal.

Federal biologists estimate Alaska's population of northern sea otters has declined some 70 percent since the mid-1980s.

"No one is certain yet what is causing this, but listing this population as threatened under the Endangered Species Act will be an important step in discovering the reasons and reversing the decline," said Interior Department Gale Norton.

The decision is a welcome change, says Corrie Bosman, Alaska program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed suit last year against the Bush administration for not listing the species.

"It is unfortunate that despite recommendations from agency biologists that an ESA listing is needed to prevent the population from going extinct, it took several years, two administrative petitions, three notice letters and a lawsuit before the Bush administration looked seriously at the need to protect this population," Bosman said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed with a petition by the Center in 2000 to list the Alaskan sea otters under the Endangered Species Act, and agency biologists finished a proposed rule in September 2002.

Sea otters are playful mammals once hunted for their thick fur. (Photo by Warren and Leora Worthington courtesy Friends of the Sea Otter)

Bush administration officials say the delay is the product of litigation and a lack of funding for the Endangered Species Act.

The proposal covers the southwest Alaska population, which lives in near shore waters from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet, including waters adjacent to the Aleutians, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Kodiak archipelago.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says two other distinct populations of sea otters in Alaska - the south-central and southeast populations - are believed to be stable or increasing and are not included in the proposed rule.

Protection under the Endangered Species Act would make it illegal to harass, harm or kill a northern sea otter in southwest Alaska and would require the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat and a recovery plan for the species.

But the proposed rule does not include a proposal for designating critical habitat.

In Thursday's announcement, administration officials said critical habitat "is not determinable at this time."

Critical habitat refers to specific geographic areas considered essential for the conservation of a threatened or endangered species - federal agencies must mitigate activities so they do not jeopardize these areas.

Data from the Fish and Wildlife Service shows that species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering compared to those without critical habitat protections.

"We hope that the population is listed quickly concurrent with a critical habitat designation that will be essential to the recovery of this population" Bosman said. "The Bush administration has delayed protection for the Alaska sea otter long enough."

Conservationists have accused the Bush administration of manufacturing a funding crisis for ESA listings by only requesting enough funds to deal with court cases.

Estimates range from $120 million to $160 million to tackle the ESA backlog, but the administration has asked for barely a tenth of that amount.

Administration officials say additional funding would make little difference because the Endangered Species Act is a broken law that does little to safeguard imperiled species.

They contend the focus should not be on regulatory regimes like critical habitat, but rather on private incentives and voluntary conservation measures.

The Endangered Species Act works fine when funded and implemented, critics say, and the administration could avoid litigation if it would obey the law.

This sea otter was killed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Sea otters are increasingly vulnerable to manmade pollution and ecological changes. (Photo courtesy Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to retain Endangered Species Act protections for the southern sea otter which was listed in 1977 during the Carter administration. A petition by a private citizen to delist the southern sea otter because of concerns that the species is depleting the Oregon salmon population was not backed up by the facts, the Service said Friday.

The Service completed a comprehensive review, known as a 90-day finding, in response to a 1998 petition submitted by Nancy E. Gregg who fears the sea otter protection would impact Gregg's Nut Farm, her family farm on the Klamath River in Yreka, California.

However, the Service said, "salmon have never been documented in the diet of southern sea otters, which do not occur in the area of concern identified by the petitioner. Also, the effect that otters have on the species they prey upon is not relevant in determining whether the Act’s protection should be removed."

The southern sea otter was listed as a threatened species in 1977 because of its small population size, its limited distribution, and potential risk to its habitat and population from oil spills. Critical habitat was not proposed.

The Service approved the first recovery plan for the southern sea otter in 1982, and published a final revised recovery plan in 2003.

Conservationists fear time may be running out for Alaska's sea otters, and the species as a whole, and warn that this means ocean ecosystems are in trouble.

Sea otters, smallest of marine mammals are considered a keystone species critical to the health of the ecosystems in which they live.

The fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries nearly pushed the sea otter into extinction until an international treaty was adopted in 1911 to protect the species.

The revival of the species flourished in the Aleutian Islands and by the mid 1970s it numbered between 50,000 to 100,000 and held some 80 percent of the world's sea otters.

Federal biologists say the current Aleutian population is less than 9,000 and the overall population of southwest Alaska has fallen some 70 percent in the past 10 to 15 years. Recent surveys indicate the decline is continuing.

Toxic contamination, disease, starvation, predation and the collapse of the Bering Sea ecosystem are believed to be responsible for the recent decline - similar ecological changes threaten the southern sea otter, which is now largely limited to the coast of central California.

There are believed to be some 2,000 southern sea otters remaining. The southern sea otter was listed as threatened under the ESA in 1977.

The proposal to list the southwest Alaska population of the northern sea otter will be published in the Federal Register in the near future, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the public will have 120 days to comment on the plan.