cooperatively with other parties on developing and implementing 

 comprehensive management plans for species of particular concern. 



Throughout this process, it has been the Marine Mammal 

 Commission's view that, whether management authority resides with 

 the State, the Federal Government, or a cooperating group of 

 interests, such authority must rest upon a foundation of care- 

 fully described and generally accepted research and management 

 programs. It was the Commission's understanding that this would 

 be done within the context of action on return of management 

 authority to the State of Alaska. This turned out not to be the 

 case, however, and, as noted in previous Annual Reports, the 

 Commission established a series of working groups in 1984 to 

 oversee development of species reports for ten species of marine 

 mammals in Alaska: walrus (Odobenus rosmarus ) . polar bear (Ursus 

 maritimus ) , ringed seal (Phoca hispida ) , bearded seal ( Eriqnathus 

 barbatus ) , ribbon seal (Phoca fasciata) , spotted seal ( Phoca 

 largha) , harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina ) , Steller sea lion 

 ( Eumetopias jubatus) , beluga whale ( Delphinapterus leucas ) , and 

 sea otter ( Enhydra lutris ) . 



The Commission adopted the working group approach to focus 

 attention on the species in question, rather than bureaucratic 

 processes. It did so in the belief that: (a) research and 

 management plans should be developed in a non-political environ- 

 ment with benefit of carefully developed and generally agreed- 

 upon species accounts and problem descriptions as base documents; 

 (b) research upon which to base an effective marine mammal 

 conservation program must carefully consider both research and 

 management issues; and (c) to be useful, species reports should 

 be cooperatively developed by groups of people with broadly 

 representative marine mammal interests and experience. 



The working groups included biologists, biometricians, 

 Native subsistence users, conservationists, and State and Federal 

 wildlife resource managers. Each group was asked to: (1) prepare 

 comprehensive summaries of available information on biological, 

 ecological, and other factors affecting conservation of the 

 species in question; (2) describe the research and management 

 activities which they believed should be undertaken; and 

 (3) estimate costs and priorities for the identified research and 

 management tasks. 



In 1988, the Commission published the reports of the working 

 groups in Selected Marine Mammals of Alaska : Species Accounts 

 with Research and Management Recommendations (see Lentfer 1988, 

 Appendix B) . The reports summarize pertinent biological infor- 

 mation and identify research and management priorities for each 

 species. To help develop research and management programs for 

 the various species, the Commission distributed the publication 

 widely to Federal and State agencies, Native groups, and others 

 interested in the conservation of marine mammals in Alaska. 



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