MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION - Annual Report for 1995 



Sources: 



Loughlin, T.R., A.S. Perlov, and V.A. Vladimirov. 1992. Range-wide estimation of total abundance of Steller sea lions in 1989. 



Marine Mammal Science 8:220-239. 

 Small, R.J., and D.P. DeMaster. 1995. Alaska marine mammal stock assessments 1995. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-AFSC-57. 



National Marine Fisheries Service. 93p. 

 Olesiuk, pers. comm. as cited in National Marine Fisheries Service. 1995. Proposed change in listing status of Steller sea lions under 



the Endangered Species Act. Federal Register 60( 1 92):5 1 968-5 1 978 . 



Causes of the decline are uncertain but may be due 

 to a combination of factors that vary in time and by 

 area. Among the possible causes are reduced prey 

 availability due to commercial fishing or climatic 

 change, incidental taking by foreign and joint-venture 

 trawl fisheries between the late 1960s and late 1980s, 

 human disturbance at haul-out sites, deliberate shoot- 

 ing by fishermen, a commercial sea lion harvest in 

 parts of Alaska from the 1950s to the early 1970s, 

 hunting in British Columbia from the early 1900s to 

 the early 1960s to reduce predation on commercial 

 fish stocks, and subsistence hunting. 



In response to the decline, the Marine Mammal 

 Commission recommended in 1988 that the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service list Steller sea lions as 



depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. 

 It also called upon the Service to convene a conserva- 

 tion team to review needed actions and prepare a 

 conservation plan using a Steller sea lion species 

 account published that year by the Commission (see 

 Appendix B, Lentfer 1988). The Service conducted 

 a range-wide survey in 1989 to help improve the basis 

 for making management determinations concerning the 

 stock, and in 1990 the Environmental Defense Fund 

 petitioned the Service to list Steller sea lions as 

 endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The 

 Service responded by taking emergency action in 

 April 1990 to list the species as threatened, and in 

 December made the listing final. Under provisions of 

 the Endangered Species Act, the Service also con- 

 vened a recovery team in 1990, and in 1992 it adopt- 



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