Chapter III — Species of Special Concern 



To help reach agreement on Alaska marine mam- 

 mal conservation needs, whether under Federal or 

 State leadership, the Commission in the mid-1980s 

 initiated a cooperative effort involving all interested 

 parties to prepare a series of species accounts for 

 Alaska marine mammals. The series included ac- 

 counts for walruses and nine other Alaska marine 

 mammals with each account providing research and 

 management recommendations. These were complet- 

 ed in 1988 (see Appendix B, Lentfer 1988). With the 

 determination that lead responsibility for walrus 

 conservation would remain with the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, the Commission wrote to the Service late in 

 1988 recommending that it use the walrus species 

 account to prepare a walrus conservation plan as 

 suggested under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. 

 The Service agreed, but work on the plan was soon 

 interrupted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill and other 

 matters. With further assistance from the Commis- 

 sion, and in consultation with Native walrus hunters, 

 the State of Alaska, and others, a final walrus conser- 

 vation plan was completed and adopted by the Service 

 in March 1994. 



Under current management programs in both the 

 United States and Russia, authorized taking of walrus- 

 es is limited principally to Native subsistence harvests 

 and the take of a few animals for purposes of research 

 and public display. Illegal hunting of walruses for 

 ivory, however, is an important management issue in 

 both countries. Other important walrus conservation 

 issues shared by the two countries include the effects 

 of contaminants on the health of both walruses and 

 Native people who consume walruses, the effects of 

 tourism on walrus behavior at some of the few land- 

 based haul-out sites in the Bering Sea, and determin- 

 ing the status and trends of the Pacific walrus stock. 



Recognizing the importance and benefits of cooper- 

 ation on these matters, government officials and 

 Native community leaders in the United States and 

 Russia began work in 1994 on parallel government-to- 

 government and Native-to-Native agreements to build 

 an international framework to conserve the Pacific 

 walrus stock. Efforts to develop these agreements are 

 discussed in Chapter VI; other walrus conservation 

 efforts in the United States are discussed below. 



Pacific Walrus Harvest Monitoring Program 



Native peoples in coastal areas throughout the 

 Arctic have depended on walruses for thousands of 

 years. The meat from harvested animals was an 

 indispensable source of food for both people and 

 dogs, while other walrus parts were used for fuel, 

 tools, and construction materials essential, for every- 

 day living. Although Native hunters now use rifles 

 instead of the lances and harpoons used by their 

 forbearers, walruses remain a vital cultural and 

 subsistence resource. Native communities still rely on 

 them for food, for ivory that can be worked into 

 handicrafts and sold for needed income, and for 

 maintaining cultural traditions. To meet these needs, 

 the Marine Mammal Protection Act exempts Alaska 

 Natives from its moratorium on taking marine mam- 

 mals, provided the taking is not wasteful and the 

 population is not listed as depleted under the Act. 



Native residents in at least 20 Alaska villages have 

 taken walruses in recent years, but 50 to 80 percent of 

 the annual harvest typically occurs in three villages — 

 Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island and 

 Diomede on Little Diomede Island in Bering Strait. 

 In the 1950s the Alaska Department of Fish and Game 

 initiated a program to monitor walrus harvests. In 

 1980 the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska 

 Eskimo Walrus Commission assumed responsibility 

 for the harvest monitoring program, which has been 

 conducted each year except 1991 and 1992 when 

 limited funding forced suspension of operations. In 

 addition to providing data to estimate harvest levels, 

 the program offers an important opportunity to work 

 with Native hunters and to gather biological samples. 



Estimates of annual catch levels in Alaska since 

 1980, as well as the reported catch in Russia and the 

 combined total catch in both countries, are shown in 

 Table 6. These estimates do not include animals that 

 are shot but escape mortally wounded. Most hunting 

 occurs at sea while animals are on ice floes, and 

 animals that are shot on ice floes may roll into the 

 water and sink before they can be retrieved. Also, 

 some hunting occurs while animals are swimming and 

 some of those shot in the water may sink before they 

 can be retrieved. A recent analysis of struck and lost 

 rates from data on Alaska hunting between 1952 and 

 1972 concluded that 42 percent of the walruses shot 



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