By December 1989, the Commission had received no further 

 information on the Fish and Wildlife Service's progress on plan 

 development. Therefore, on 13 December 1989, the Commission 

 wrote to the Service to ask about the status of the plans. In 

 its letter, the Commission noted that, while it recognized work 

 on the plans had undoubtedly been delayed due to demands placed 

 on the Service's Alaska staff by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it 

 hoped that rapid progress on the plans could be made in the near 

 future. It offered to help in this regard and asked to be 

 advised of the schedules for completing the plans. A response to 

 the Commission's letter had not been received by the end of 1989. 



In 1990, the Commission hopes to work with both Services to 

 ensure that conservation plans needed to protect and conserve 

 certain marine mammal species in Alaska are completed and 

 implemented as quickly as possible. 



Alaska Sea Otters 



As noted in the previous Annual Report, a lawsuit was filed 

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

 ( Katelnikof f v. U.S. Department of the Interior ) involving the 

 take of sea otters for handicraft purposes. At issue was 

 confiscation by the 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 because it did not consider them to 

 be traditional Native handicrafts of the type made prior to 

 passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. It is the 

 Service's view that the Act's exemption allowing Natives to take 

 marine mammals for handicraft purposes applies only to tradi- 

 tional handicrafts commonly made before the Act was passed. The 

 suit noted that the Act preserved the right of Alaska Natives to 

 take marine mammals for handicraft purposes and challenged the 

 validity of the Fish and Wildlife Service's regulatory definition 

 of "authentic Native articles of handicrafts and clothing." 



On 21 July 1986, the Court ruled in favor of the Service, 

 holding that the language of the Act and its legislative history 

 supported establishing 1972 as a cutoff date in its regulations. 

 However, a new challenge to the Service's definition was filed by 

 an intervening party in October 1987. The challenge claimed that 

 the Service's regulation is unconstitutionally vague because, 

 with respect to sea otters, it does not provide sufficient 

 guidance to determine what handicrafts were commonly produced 

 before 21 December 1972 when the Act became effective. 



On 27 June 1988, the Court issued an order stating that it 

 would entertain this constitutional challenge to the regulation. 

 The order also strongly implied that the regulatory definition 

 would be found to be vague. It therefore suggested that the 



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