Chapter II — Species of Special Concern 



believed that the San Nicolas Island translocation 

 should not be declared a failure and that the Service 

 should meet its obligation to remove otters from the 

 management zone south of Point Conception. 



At the end of 1998 the Fish and Wildlife Service 

 had not yet completed either its section 7 biological 

 opinion or the revisions of the southern sea otter 

 recovery plan. The Commission, in consultation with 

 its Committee of Scientific Advisors, will review and, 

 as appropriate, provide comments to the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service on both the biological opinion and 

 the revised recovery plan when they are made avail- 

 able. 



The Alaska Sea Otter Population 



When commercial exploitation ended in 1911, 

 small groups of sea otters survived in several remote 

 areas of Alaska. Since that time, the species has 

 repopulated most of its former range in Alaska. 

 Because no sea otters survived in southeast Alaska, a 

 program was initiated in the late 1960s and early 

 1970s to translocate otters to the area from Amchitka 

 Island and Prince William Sound. 



The best available data indicate that there current- 

 ly are approximately 100,000 sea otters in Alaska. 

 Although the population is large and is at or growing 

 toward its carrying capacity in most areas, there are 

 a number of threats and conservation issues. They 

 include (1) conflicts with commercial, subsistence, 

 and recreational shellfish fisheries that developed in 

 the absence of sea otters; (2) incidental take in gillnet 

 and other fisheries; (3) oil and gas development and 

 transportation; (4) logging, mariculture, and other 

 coastal development; (5) Native subsistence hunting; 

 and (6) the increasing tourist industry. Threats related 

 to the oil industry were illustrated by the 1989 Exxon 

 Valdez oil spill, which directly killed an estimated 

 3,905 (range 1,904 to 11,157) sea otters and may 

 have affected many others through contamination and 

 destruction of food species. 



Revised Stock Assessments — The 1994 amend- 

 ments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act require 

 that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service periodically assess the status 



of all marine mammal stocks for which they are 

 responsible. The Fish and Wildlife Service's initial 

 stock assessment for sea otters, completed in 1995, 

 identified a single Alaska population. Based primarily 

 on studies of population genetics, along with distribu- 

 tion data, a revised stock assessment was drafted in 

 1997. As discussed in the previous annual report, the 

 draft revision identified three Alaska sea otter stocks: 

 (I) the southeast stock, estimated at 9,000 animals, 

 distributed from the U.S. -Canada border to Cape 

 Yakataga, just north of Yakutat; (2) the south-central 

 Alaska stock, estimated at 23,000 animals inhabiting 

 Prince William Sound, the Kenai coast, and the 

 eastern side of Cook Inlet; and (3) the southwest 

 Alaska stock, estimated at 68,000 animals, whose 

 range includes the Kodiak Archipelago, the Alaska 

 Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. The revised draft 

 stock assessment was made available for public review 

 in 1998. 



On 3 1 August 1998 the Alaska Sea Otter Commis- 

 sion requested that the Fish and Wildlife Service hold 

 a formal hearing, as provided for in the 1994 amend- 

 ments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to 

 review the basis for the Service's decision to reclassi- 

 fy Alaska sea otters into three separate stocks. At the 

 Marine Mammal Commission's meeting in Portland, 

 Maine, on 10-12 November 1998, the Commission 

 was advised that the Service was preparing briefing 

 material for the administrative law judge and expected 

 to announce a date for the requested hearing early in, 

 1999. 



Adak Island — In 1996 the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service advised the Commission of a significant and 

 unexplained decrease in the sea otter abundance in the 

 vicinity of Adak Island, Alaska. Counts conducted 

 under the Navy Legacy Program showed a decline 

 from approximately 1,800 animals in 1994 to 400 in 

 1996. At the Commission's annual meeting in No- 

 vember 1997, the Service reported that recent surveys 

 indicated a decline of approximately 25 percent per 

 year from 1991 to 1997. A comparison of results 

 firom surveys conducted in 1980 and 1997 showed an 

 overall decline of 70 percent at Adak Island during the 

 period. The Service also compared counts conducted 

 by the U.S. Geological Survey for three other islands 

 — Kagalaska Island (adjacent to Adak Island) and 

 Amchitka and Kiska in the Rat Islands. The data 



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