that already had gone into developing a plan, the Commission 

 concluded, and so commented in its 26 May letter, that it 

 should be possible for the Service to develop and circulate a 

 draft plan with two months. By letter of 5 July 1988, the 

 Service advised the Commission that, in accordance with its 

 recommendation, the Service was suspending its efforts to 

 pursue a new international agreement. At the end of 1988, 

 the Commission had not received a draft fur seal conservation 

 plan for review from the Service. 



Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus) 



Steller or northern sea lions inhabit coastal areas 

 around the rim of the North Pacific Ocean from northern Hok- 

 kaido, Japan, through the Kuril Islands and Okhotsk Sea, the 

 Aleutian Islands and central Bering Sea, the southern coast 

 of Alaska and the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, and 

 Oregon, south to the California Channel Islands. Numbers are 

 greatest and the largest pupping colonies occur in the Gulf 

 of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. 



Available information indicates that Steller sea lion 

 populations have been declining since the late 1970s in the 

 Kuril, Commander, Aleutian and Pribilof Islands, in Bristol 

 Bay and the central and western Gulf of Alaska and in 

 California. The cause or causes of the decline have not been 

 determined and, on 9-10 December 1986, the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service's National Marine Mammal Laboratory convened 

 a workshop to review available information and identify research 

 necessary to determine the cause and to better document the 

 nature and extent of the decline. 



The workshop report, published in March 1987, indicates 

 that the number of adult and juvenile Steller sea lions on 

 haul-out sites in the central Gulf of Alaska has declined 

 from about 140,000 in 1956-1960 to about 68,000 in 1985 — a 

 decline of about 52 percent. The decline has been greatest 

 in the eastern Aleutian Islands where estimated numbers in 

 1985 were 79 percent less than in 1956-1960. The workshop 

 concluded that the decline was continuing and likely was due 

 to reduction in juvenile and adult female survival rates. 

 The workshop also noted that declines in North Pacific fur 

 seals, harbor seals, and fish-eating birds apparently have 

 occurred in recent years as well in the Gulf of Alaska and 

 the Bering Sea. 



Proposed Designation as Depleted 



By Federal Register notice of 6 May 1988, the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service published an advance notice of, and 

 reguested comments on, a proposed rule to designate the Steller 



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