MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION - Annual Report for 1995 



such co-management efforts for harbor seals. In 

 1995, with funding provided by the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, the Alaska Native Harbor Seal 

 Commission held several organizational meetings to 

 develop bylaws and to develop a strategy for meeting 

 co-management objectives. 



As a related matter, discussed in Chapter X, the 

 Commission provided funding in 1995 for a study to 

 determine what more might be done to develop a 

 database on harbor seals taken by Alaska Natives. 

 Among other things, the study is to review data 

 collected by Native harbor seal hunters and determine 

 how it might be made available without compromising 

 proprietary information. The data are presently stored 

 with the Alaska Native Harbor Seal Commission and 

 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It also will 

 suggest data collection protocols that could be used by 

 Native hunters. 



Alaska Harbor Seal Stock Assessments 



The 1994 amendments to the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act direct the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service to prepare stock assessments for all marine 

 mammal stocks in the United States to help manage 

 incidental take of marine mammals in U.S. waters 

 (see Chapter IV). The assessments are to include 

 estimates of the minimum stock size, the maximum 

 net productivity, and the potential biological removal 

 level (not including natural mortality) which, if taken, 

 would still allow a stock to reach or remain within its 

 optimum sustainable population level. The assess- 

 ments also are to review information on take levels in 

 commercial fisheries and in other human-related 

 activities and to determine whether stocks are "strate- 

 gic" stocks, which could require special management 

 attention to reduce incidental-take rates . 



The Service distributed draft stock assessments in 

 August 1994, including assessments for two harbor 

 seal stocks in Alaska: a southeastern Alaska stock 

 and a Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea stock. For both 

 stocks, the draft assessments concluded that human- 

 caused mortality appeared to exceed the estimated 

 potential biological removal levels and that they 

 should therefore be considered strategic. As de- 

 scribed the previous annual report, the Commission's 

 1 December 1994 comments to the Service on the 



draft stock assessments questioned the minimum stock 

 size estimate for the southeastern Alaska stock and the 

 justification for its designation as depleted. For the 

 Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea stock, the Commission 

 suggested evaluating abundance, fishery take, and 

 subsistence harvest data by region. 



In August 1995 the Service circulated its final 

 stock assessments, including those for three harbor 

 seal stocks in Alaska: a southeastern Alaska stock, a 

 Bering Sea stock, and a Gulf of Alaska stock. For the 

 first two stocks, respectively, the assessments cited 

 minimum population estimates of 32,745 and 17,243 

 seals, assumed (given limited direct data) maximum 

 net productivity rates of 12 percent per year, and 

 calculated potential biological removal rates of 1 ,965 

 and 1,035 seals per year. It also concluded that the 

 southeastern Alaska stock was stable and that, while 

 counts in the Bering Sea area between 1975 and 1991 

 showed a decline, a potentially anomalous count in 

 1976 makes such a trend equivocal. 



For both the southeastern Alaska and Bering Sea 

 stocks, incidental-take levels based on fishery observer 

 data and fishermen's logbooks indicate take levels for 

 the regions were below 10 percent of their estimated 

 potential biological removal levels. Most of the 

 incidental take in both regions involved set and drift 

 gillnet fisheries for salmon. Combined with estimates 

 of subsistence take in those regions, total human- 

 caused mortality also was estimated to be below the 

 calculated potential biological removal rates, and 

 neither stock therefore was considered strategic under 

 the Marine Mammal Protection Act. 



Estimates of minimum population size and potential 

 biological removal levels were not provided for the 

 Gulf of Alaska harbor seal stock. Instead determina- 

 tions regarding these estimates and the population's 

 status with regard to being a strategic stock were 

 deferred pending analyses of information to be ob- 

 tained through a co-management program. The 

 period of the deferral and the information to be 

 analyzed was not specified in the assessment. It was 

 noted, however, that current estimates of population 

 size are low compared to those from 1970s and 1980s. 



36 



