NOAA Fisheries

The release today of the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) Biological Opinion on Steller Sea Lions in the Alaska fishery is an important step toward resolving the dispute that has caused large areas of the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea, and the Aleutian Island waters to be closed by court order to fishing. It is my firm belief that the Opinion will provide a sound basis for NMFS's request that the court's injunction be lifted in time for fishing to resume by early next year.

While NMFS's work has been thorough, its conclusions will not be welcome news for many in the fishing industry. New fishing restrictions, and any economic effects that they produce, will make the scientific conclusions contained in the Opinion controversial. Under other circumstances, I would have preferred for the agency to have had time to solicit the views of all affected parties. However, to have any hope of re-opening the fishery early next year, the agency has had to work quickly, but carefully, to complete the Biological Opinion by the end of November, as it promised the court. It has met that deadline. In addition, to help ensure that all relevant scientific and technical issues were fairly considered, NMFS sought the services of several highly respected, independent scientists, including experts from Alaska and Washington.

Where the economic issues are as important as they are here, I believe more should be done to promote public trust and confidence in the agency's scientific efforts. Accordingly, I am directing the head of NMFS, Penny Dalton, to carry out several measures designed to increase the openness, and reinforce the public credibility, of its scientific work on Steller sea lions.

First, NMFS will propose to the National Academy of Sciences that it conduct an independent, public review of the scientific issues surrounding the Steller sea lion debate, including from the perspective of the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, and that it report back to NMFS in time to inform the agency's decisions under Item 2.

Second, the agency will immediately begin a program of intensive additional scientific work throughout the fishery. The goal of that program will be to continuously improve the data available to the public, the scientific community, and to NMFS' own scientists and decision-makers.

Third, NMFS will commit to a date-certain, next year, when it will decide whether there is sufficient basis for re-initiating formal consultations under the Endangered Species Act, leading to a revised Biological Opinion.

The stakes in this issue are high. The value of the Alaska fishery exceeds $1 billion, and there are thousands of jobs that depend on maintaining a healthy and sustainable fishing industry. While NMFS believes that its proposed new measures will still allow fishing revenues approximating those of recent years, it is likely that some segments of the industry, and the communities that depend upon them, will experience disproportionate impacts. Accordingly, I support and invite discussion about reasonable and appropriate forms of assistance for those who, as a result of the final regulations, experience significant impacts on their livelihoods.

The goals of the 28-year-old Endangered Species Act are valuable, and they are achievable. In addition to preventing the extinction of species, they act as a form of insurance against irreversibly depleting the diversity and abundance of our natural world -- a world we rely on not just for aesthetic appreciation, but, as in this case, for sustaining across the generations the livelihoods of so many American citizens. We can and we will continue to work with the fishing industry, the environmental community, state, local, and tribal governments, and the public at large to ensure that the goals of a vibrant economy and the protection of the natural world upon which much of our economy depends, remain in balance.

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