NOAA Fisheries News Releases
NEWS RELEASE
October 19, 2006
Sheela McLean
(907) 586-7032
NOAA Fisheries initiates process for annual bowhead whale subsistence quotas
NOAA Fisheries has published a Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for setting annual bowhead whale subsistence harvest quotas in Alaska from 2008 to 2017. With the October 18 announcement (Volume 71, No. 201) the official scoping process begins. The agency is soliciting public and stakeholder comment on the proposed action and its alternatives.
The scoping period ends on December 15, 2006. All comments need to be received by NOAA by that date.
Bowhead whale subsistence harvests are authorized by NOAA Fisheries annually under the authority of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The actual quota is determined by the International Whaling Commission following review of the status of the western Arctic (Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort) population of bowhead whale and other scientific information. NOAA Fisheries co-manages the bowhead quota with the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission for the subsistence harvest.
The current quota expires at the end of 2007. That quota was set by the International Whaling Commission in a five-year block, in which up to 255 whales could be landed between 2003 and 2007. Since 2003, the International Whaling Commission has reviewed the bowhead whale science and the results of the Alaska Eskimo subsistence harvests annually.
The International Whaling Commission will be meeting in Anchorage in May of 2007 in part to consider reauthorizing the western Arctic bowhead quota for another five-year period.
This EIS is being prepared in support of NOAA Fisheries' annual authorization of western Arctic bowhead whale strike quotas to the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.
The agency's proposed action is to continue administering these quotas as in past years. NOAA's objective is to accommodate Federal trust responsibilities by recognizing the cultural and subsistence needs of Alaskan Natives to the fullest extent possible consistent with applicable law, and to ensure that any aboriginal subsistence hunt of whales does not adversely effect the conservation of the western Arctic bowhead whale stock.
The issuance of these quotas is considered a major federal action that requires the agency to follow National Environmental Policy Act procedures. NOAA Fisheries estimates that a draft EIS will be available in April 2007. Please visit www.fakr.noaa.gov/protectedresources/whales/bowhead for more information.
Written comments can be mailed to Steve Davis, NMFS, P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668, hand delivered to Federal Building 709 West 9the Street, Room 420A, Juneau, AK, or sent by email to the following address: bowhead-EIS@noaa.gov.
For further information contact Steve Davis or Brad Smith , NOAA Fisheries, Anchorage Field Office, (907)271-5006.
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine resources through scientific research, management, enforcement, and the conservation of marine mammals and other protected marine species and their habitat. To learn more about NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, please visit our websites at www.fakr.noaa.gov or at www.afsc.noaa.gov In 2007 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, celebrates 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA.
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