Chapter 11 — Species of Special Concern 



may startle animals hauled out on ice, causing them to 

 rush into the water. In doing so, stampeding adults 

 may kill or injure calves, and calves, unable to fend 

 for themselves, may become separated from their 

 mothers. 



same year, the Commission completed a series of 

 species reports with research and management recom- 

 mendations for several Alaska marine mammals (see 

 Appendix B, Lentfer 1988). Among the species 

 covered was the Pacific walrus. 



Section 101(a)(5) of the Marine Mammal Protec- 

 tion Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior and 

 the Secretary of Commerce, depending on the species 

 involved, to develop regulations upon request to allow 

 incidental, but not intentional, taking of small num- 

 bers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens engaged in 

 activities other than commercial fishing. Such autho- 

 rization may be granted for periods of up to five 

 years, provided the activities will have a negligible 

 impact on the species and will not have an unmitigable 

 adverse impact on the availability of that species for 

 subsistence uses. The regulations must specify the 

 permissible activities, the means of minimizing 

 possible adverse impacts, and the monitoring require- 

 ments that will be followed to ensure that effects are 

 indeed negligible. 



At the request of representatives of Alaska's 

 offshore oil and gas industry, the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service prepared regulations in 1991 to allow the 

 incidental take of walruses and polar bears during 

 certain offshore oil and gas exploration activities in 

 the Chukchi Sea. The Service subsequendy reviewed 

 several industry requests for letters of authorization to 

 take walruses and polar bears pursuant to those 

 regulations. The Marine Mammal Commission 

 provided detailed comments to the Service on both the 

 regulations and industry requests for letters authoriza- 

 tion. These efforts are described in Chapter VUI. 



Preparation of a Pacific Walrus 

 Conservation Plan 



In 1988, Congress amended the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act by adding a section authorizing the 

 Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce to develop 

 conservation plans for non-depleted marine mammals, 

 such as Pacific walruses, if doing so would further 

 conservation needs. Like recovery plans for endan- 

 gered species, conservation plans provide a basis for 

 identifying and coordinating research and management 

 tasks necessary to assure species conservation. That 



When it transmitted the species reports to the Fish 

 and Wildlife Service on 11 January 1989, the Com- 

 mission expressed its belief that a conservation plan 

 for walruses should be prepared and that most of the 

 work necessary to do so had been done through 

 development of its walrus species report. In its 3 

 March 1989 reply, the Service stated that it expected 

 to complete a conservation plan in about 18 months. 

 In this regard, the Service noted that a preliminary 

 meeting between the Service, the State, and a Native 

 group had taken place in November 1988 to help 

 guide work on developing and implementing a walrus 

 plan. However, because of other pressing needs, such 

 as the response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Service 

 staff was unable to make much progress on the plan. 



On 25-27 April 1991, as part of a review of 

 Alaska marine mammal issues conducted during its 

 annual meeting in Bellevue, Washington, the Commis- 

 sion and its Committee of Scientific Advisors re- 

 viewed the status of walrus research and management 

 work, including development of a conservation plan. 

 During the meeting, representatives of the Service 

 stated that, while they remained committed to prepar- 

 ing a plan, efforts to begin drafting a plan had been 

 suspended because of other essential demands on the 

 Service's limited staff and funding. Moreover, the 

 Service indicated that this situation was not likely to 

 change in the foreseeable future. 



As a result, the Commission offered to contract for 

 the development of an initial draft conservation plan 

 which the Service could use to facilitate the plan 

 development process and help overcome the problem 

 of limited resources. By letter of 29 April, the 

 Commission confirmed its offer. The Service indicat- 

 ed that it would use the initial draft conservation plan 

 and other information previously prepared by the 

 Commission in developing the walrus plan. As noted 

 in Chapter DC, the Commission contracted for a 

 project to develop a preliminary draft plan. 



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