MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION — Annual Report for 1991 



Federal Marine Mammal 

 Marking and Taking R^ulations 



In 1981, the Marine Mammal Protection Act was 

 amended to give the Fish and Wildlife Service and the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service authority to pro- 

 mulgate regulations requiring the marking, tagging, 

 and reporting of marine mammals taken by Alaska 

 Natives. The purpose of the amendment was to make 

 it possible to obtain better information on the marine 

 mammals taken for subsistence and handicraft purpos- 

 es and to prevent illegal trade in products from those 

 species. 



Marking and tagging regulations were published 

 by the Fish and Wildlife Service on 28 June 1988. 

 They require that, within 30 days of taking any polar 

 bear, wdnis, or sea otter, the Alaska Native hunter 

 must report the take to the Service and present speci- 

 fied parts of the animal to be marked and tagged. 

 Polar bear and sea otter skins and skulls and walrus 

 tusks must all be marked or tagged. Reports must 

 include, among other things, the date and location of 

 the take and the sex of the animal taken. Raw, 

 unworked, or tanned parts from these three species 

 taken between 21 December 1972 (the date the Marine 

 Mammal Protection Act became effective) and 26 

 October 1988 (the effective date of the regulations) 

 that had not yet been converted into handicrafts or 

 clothing were required to be presented for marking by 

 24 April 1989. Possession or transportation of 

 unmarked marine mammal parts, except as authorized 

 in the regulations, is a violation of the Act. 



Since promulgating its regulations, the Service has 

 worked closely with Native groups and the State of 

 Alaska to implement the marking and tagging pro- 

 gram. At present, almost 100 individuals, in more 

 than 80 coastal villages, have been trained and author- 

 ized to tag marine mammal parts taken by Alaska 

 Natives. The authorized taggers include Native 

 village residents working under contract to the Ser- 

 vice, and Service employees in Anchorage and at 

 National Wildlife Refuges. Taggers, responsible for 

 specific geographic areas, affix official tags and marks 

 to marine mammal parts and collect information on 

 the harvested animals. 



In 1990, the Service began using a computerized 

 data management system to help store, manipulate, 

 and retrieve data gathered through the marking and 

 tagging program. The following year, the Service as- 

 signed a second employee to work fiiU-time on the 

 marking and tagging program. Also in 1991, the 

 Service changed the way in which it maintains data 

 with respect to polar bears. While data for sea otters 

 and walruses will continue to be maintained on a 

 calendar year basis, polar bear data is now recorded 

 on the basis of a harvest year, which runs from 1 July 

 to 30 June. This change will facilitate comparison of 

 recent polar bear data with data from past years. 



Data on the number of marine mammals tagged 

 under the Fish and Wildlife Service's program 

 through 1991, are presented in Table 13. To date, the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service has not implement- 

 ed any marking and tagging regulations for species 

 under its jurisdiction which are taken by Alaska 

 Natives for subsistence or handicraft purposes. 



Litigation Related to 

 Marine Mammals in Alaska 



Katelnikoff v. U.S. Department of the Interior, 

 Didrickson v. U.S. Department of the Interior, and 

 Alaska Sea Otter Commission v. U.S. Department of 

 the Interior — The Katelnikoff lawsuit was filed in 

 1985 in the U.S. District Court for the District of 

 Alaska. It concerns the take of sea otters for handi- 

 craft purposes. At issue was confiscation by the Fish 

 and Wildlife Service of certain items — teddy bears, 

 hats and mittens, fur flowers, and pillows — made of 

 sea otter pelts by Alaska Natives and offered for sale 

 as handicrafts. The Service confiscated the items be- 

 cause it did not consider tiiem to be traditional Native 

 handicrafts of a type made prior to passage of the 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. Under the 

 Service's regulatory definition of "authentic native 

 articles of handicrafts and clothing" adopted in 1972, 

 the Act's Native exception applied only to traditional 

 handicrafts commonly made by Alaska Natives on or 

 before the effective date of the Act. The plaintiff 

 challenged the validity of the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service's regulatory definition, arguing that the Act 



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