MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION - Annual Report for 1998 



if not, what steps need to be taken. The Service also 

 noted that it plans to convene a meeting in spring 

 1999 to review and identify research priorities regard- 

 ing sources of sea otter mortality. The meeting will 

 involve members of the Sea Otter Recovery Team and 

 invited participants with related expertise. 



In light of the continuing decline of the California 

 sea otter population, the Fish and Wildlife Service in 

 1998 reinitiated consultations under section 7 of the 

 Endangered Species Act. At the Commission's annual 

 meeting in November 1998, the Service indicated that 

 a biological opinion was expected to be completed by 

 the end of 1998. It is the Commission's understand- 

 ing that, at year's end, the draft biological opinion 

 was undergoing review by the Service's regional 

 office. A second document evaluating proposed 

 criteria to help determine if and when the sea otter 

 translocation effort is a failure is also undergoing 

 internal review. 



Sea Otter Range Expansion — As noted above, 

 the sea otter recovery plan adopted by the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service in 1982 required that the area sur- 

 rounding the translocation zone be designated as a 

 management zone from which sea otters would be 

 excluded by non-lethal means to protect fishery 

 resources. Since the sea otter translocation program 

 was initiated in 1987, sea otters observed residing in 

 the management zone have been captured and re- 

 moved from the area. In the spring of 1998, about 

 100 sea otters moved south of Point Conception, the 

 northern boundary of the management zone, raising 

 concerns that the animals would have devastating 

 effects on shellfish fisheries in the management zone. 



The Service decided to defer efforts to remove 

 these otters from the management zone pending 

 consultations with affected stakeholders. It did so 

 because (1) the cause of the ongoing population 

 decline is unknown, but could include new or previ- 

 ously unknown diseases, stress from environmental 

 contaminants, and decreases in key prey species, in 

 addition to possible incidental take in trap and gillnet 

 fisheries; (2) it would not be possible to catch and 

 move all or a large percentage of the sea otters in the 

 management zone in a short period of time {e.g., one 

 to three months) at an affordable cost without killing 

 some of the animals; (3) at least some of the sea otters 



that are captured and moved back into the range of the 

 parent population would die after release or would 

 return to the management zone south of Point Concep- 

 tion; (4) returning all or a substantial portion of the 

 animals to the parent range could deplete food re- 

 sources available to breeding animals there and/or 

 cause stress that would make the animals more vulner- 

 able to disease and accelerate the population decline; 

 (5) there are no suitable habitat areas outside the 

 current sea otter range to which the animals from the 

 management zone could be moved without affecting 

 other fisheries; (6) the risk of one or more major oil 

 spills occurring in or near the mainland California sea 

 otter range has not declined substantially since the 

 population was listed as threatened in 1977; (7) the 

 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, 

 Alaska, in 1989 demonstrated that a single oil spill 

 could affect an area larger than the current California 

 sea otter range; and (8) as noted earlier, the Southern 

 Sea Otter Recovery Team has recommended that the 

 Service abandon the zonal management concept. 



The Fish and Wildlife Service held public meet- 

 ings in Santa Barbara and Monterey, California, on 12 

 and 18 August 1998, respectively, to seek public input 

 on possible management options. At the meetings, the 

 Service announced that it was reinitiating consultations 

 pursuant to section 7 of the Endangered Species Act 

 to reexamine the sea otter translocation program in 

 light of new information. 



As noted above, issues related to the conservation 

 and management of the California sea otter population 

 were reviewed during the Commission's meeting in 

 Portland, Maine, on 10-12 November 1998. Repre- 

 sentatives of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the 

 Friends of the Sea Otter, the California Abalone 

 Divers Association, and the California Sea Urchin 

 Harvesters Association presented views regarding sea 

 otter issues in California. The presentations indicated 

 that there are substantially differing views as to what 

 the Service could and should be doing to protect both 

 sea otters and shellfish fisheries in California. In the 

 view of the Friends of the Sea Otter, the San Nicolas 

 translocation should be declared a failure, the animals 

 remaining at San Nicolas Island should be left there, 

 and range expansion both north and south of the 

 current sea otter range in California should be encour- 

 aged. Conversely, the fisheries representatives 



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