Chapter II — Species of Special Concern 



requiring special management efforts. The potential 

 biological removal level is calculated from a formula 

 designed to estimate the total number of animals that 

 can be removed from the stock annually (not including 

 natural mortality), while ensuring that the stock will 

 increase toward or remain at its optimum sustainable 

 level. A strategic stock is one either listed as threat- 

 ened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act 

 or as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection 

 Act, or whose human-caused mortality level exceeds 

 the potential biological removal level. 



The Fish and Wildlife Service completed an initial 

 stock assessment report for Pacific walruses in 1995. 

 In September 1998 it released a revised stock assess- 

 ment report. The revised report cited the same 

 minimum population estimate (188,316 walruses based 

 on a rangewide population survey conducted in 1990) 

 and potential biological removal level (7,533 walruses 

 per year) as cited in the 1995 report, but considered 

 new information on human-caused mortality. It noted 

 that about 17 walruses a year have been killed in 

 commercial fisheries, and that the average annual 

 mortality in U.S. and Russian subsistence harvests 

 between 1992 and 1996 was 4,866 walruses. Because 

 Pacific walruses are not listed as threatened, endan- 

 gered, or depleted and because estimates of recent 

 human-caused mortality are below the calculated 

 potential biological removal level, the 1998 report, 

 like the 1995 report, concluded that walruses are not 

 a strategic stock as defined under the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act. 



U.S. -Russian Cooperative Agreements 



Between the 1970s and 1990s mutual interest by 

 the United States and the former Soviet Union in 

 conserving Pacific walruses led to a number of 

 cooperative research projects, including a series of 

 rangewide population surveys conducted at five-year 

 intervals from 1975 to 1990. After the collapse of the 

 Soviet government, steps were initiated to strengthen 

 and formalize cooperative arrangements for research 

 and management activities between Russia and the 

 United States on Pacific walruses, as well as the 

 Chukchi-Bering Seas stock of polar bears, which also 

 ranges across the U.S-Russia border. A protocol 

 expressing mutual interest in negotiating a bilateral 

 agreement on polar bears was signed in 1992 and, as 



noted above, a similar protocol on walruses was 

 signed in 1994. Both protocols envision separate 

 government-to-government and Native-to-Native 

 agreements between respective counterparts in Russia 

 and the United States. 



The Fish and Wildlife Service is the lead federal 

 agency responsible for negotiating agreements on both 

 species. Officials in both countries agreed to com- 

 plete negotiations on the government-to-government 

 polar bear agreement before proceeding to negotiate 

 the walrus agreement. As noted in the polar bear 

 section elsewhere in this chapter, a final text for the 

 bilateral polar bear agreement was developed during 

 1998, but final approval and signature by the two 

 countries was not completed before the end of 1998. 

 Work to develop a bilateral walrus agreement was 

 therefore deferred during 1998. However, during 



1998 the Eskimo Walrus Commission continued to 

 work on a Native-to-Native walrus agreement with 

 walrus hunters in Russia. The Service plans to work 

 closely with the Alaska Native community during 



1999 to develop a U.S. negotiating position on 

 provisions for a U.S. -Russia walrus agreement when 

 bilateral discussions resume. 



Subsistence Harvests of Pacific Walrus 



Because of the importance of marine mammal 

 hunting to Alaska Natives, the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act exempts subsistence hunting by Alaska 

 Natives from the Act's general moratorium on taking 

 marine mammals. The exemption allows Native 

 hunting to continue unregulated by the federal govern- 

 ment provided that the harvest is done for subsistence 

 purposes, it is not wasteful, and that the marine 

 mammal stock is not listed as depleted under the Act. 

 Although walruses currently are taken by Native 

 hunters in many coastal villages, about three-fourths 

 of the Alaska subsistence harvest is taken by residents 

 of four coastal villages: Gambell and Savoonga on St. 

 Lawrence Island, Diomede on Little Diomede Island 

 in the Bering Strait, and Wales on the tip of the 

 Seward Peninsula on Alaska's mainland. Walruses 

 also are taken for subsistence purposes by Native 

 communities in Russia. 



Since 1980 when the Fish and Wildlife Service first 

 assumed lead responsibility for walrus research and 



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