I am really curious how the agency made this determination when no new science has been presented which makes that break-through discovery. This appears to be a situation where the agency had a theory, but not enough science to either prove or disprove it, and once its bluff had been called by a lawsuit, hid behind the 'precautionary principle' and the 'best available science' excuses to attack the pollock fishery in the hope that the lawsuit would go away. I am convinced that the agency has neither best available science nor knows whether the management changes it is proposing will have any positive effect on the Steller populations. Some of these deficiencies have been known for more than 10 years but remarkably little has been invested in research to answer the questions raised. The western population of the Steller Sea Lion was listed as an endangered species in 1998.
Residents are deeply committed to maintaining a health fishery and marine mammal populations.
However, they believe that the management measures taken by NMFS under the Endangered Species Act are based on questionable scientific assumptions. These assumptions have led to management measures that severely restrict the pollock fishery and undermine the foundation of the fishery dependent communities of the Aleutians East Borough. These management measures may be irrelevant or counterproductive to sea lion recovery.