Douglas P. DeMaster

Alaska marine mammal stock assessments, 1999

The National Marine Fisheries Services Alaska Fisheries Science Center uses the NOAA Technical Memorandum series to issue informal scientific and technical publications when complete formal review and editorial processing are not appropriate or feasible. Documents within this series reflect sound professional work and may be referenced in the formal scientific and technical literature. Public Law 103-238 was enacted allowing significant changes to provisions within the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Interactions between marine mammals and commercial fisheries are addressed under three new Sections. This new regime replaced the interim exemption that has regulated fisheries-related incidental takes since 1988. Section 117, Stock Assessments, required the establishment of three regional scientific review groups to advise and report on the status of marine mammal stocks within Alaskan waters, along the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii), and the Atlantic Coast (including the Gulf of Mexico). This report provides information on the marine mammal stocks of Alaska under the jurisdiction of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Each stock assessment includes a description of the stocks geographic range, a minimum population estimate, current population trends, current and maximum net productivity rates, optimum sustainable population levels and allowable removal levels, and estimates of annual human-caused mortality and serious injury through interactions with commercial fisheries and subsistence hunters. Under the new regime, these data will be used to evaluate the progress of each fishery towards achieving its goal of zero mortality and serious injury. This is a working document. Each stock assessment report is designed to stand alone and will be updated as new information becomes available. The authors wish to solicit any new data or comments that would serve to improve future stock assessment reports.

Marine Mammals: New Objectives in U.S. Fishery Management

Traditionally, fishery management has been directed to the objectives of sustainable yield and resource conservation. Since the early 1970s, as a consequence of implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act and their interaction with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the objective of protecting marine mammal populations has been added. The active pursuit of this protection has been hastened by public pressure. Among the ways that marine mammals interact with fisheries are through accidental catch in fishery operations and through direct and indirect competition for prey. The interactions are illustrated in case studies of Steller sea lions and the eastern North Pacific fisheries, dolphins in the tuna fishery of the eastern tropical Pacific, and sea otters and the shellfish fisheries of the California coast. These studies demonstrate both the conflicting legal frameworks and the relative roles of science and societal values in the broadening o...