Judge vacates endangered designations for two subspecies of Arctic seals

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason has vacated the Endangered Species Act critical habitat designations for the Arctic subspecies of ringed seals and the Beringia population of bearded seals.

“The federal government uses the same tactics again and again to prevent the people of Alaska from using their own land and resources,” said Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor. “They identify an area or activity they wish to restrict, and they declare it unusable under the guise of conservation or preservation. There is no sound logic, or science, in this approach and it doesn’t account for the fact that Alaskans have shown themselves to be good stewards of this land who use it responsibly. This win confirms what we knew to be true all along.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service had designated vast areas for both seal species – each approximately the size of the state of Texas – as critical habitat.

The Court vacated the critical habitat designation because NMFS failed to explain why such a vast area was indispensable to the species survival and recovery or to account for the vast amount of habitat for the seals outside U.S. jurisdiction. The federal government also didn’t bother to consider the economic impacts of the designation, especially in light of the State of Alaska and North Slope Borough’s request to remove areas from the designation, near communities and the coast.

The Arctic subspecies of ringed seal and the Beringia population of bearded seal were both listed as threatened under the ESA in 2012.

NMFS based the listings on the predicted loss of large areas of the seals’ sea ice habitat by the year 2100. However, both ringed and bearded seals continue to occupy the entirety of their vast ranges across the Arctic and populations remain healthy.

State of Alaska biologists have collected data during the past decade, showing that both seal species are generally healthy, with robust reproductive rates, and include no indication of population declines now or in the near future (the next 25 years). Despite this, NMFS proceeded in 2022 with designating vast areas as critical habitat, adding another unnecessary, harmful layer, to the already complex federal bureaucracy in the waters off Alaska.

“NMFS has been on a path to surround the State of Alaska with massive critical habitat designations that unjustly stymie economic activity with little benefit to the species,” said Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang. “The court’s decision has stopped NMFS from designating all potential seal habitat as critical habitat regardless of whether that habitat is essential or ‘critical’ to the species. This decision brings a touch of common sense back to the ESA and will hopefully help ensure that future critical habitat designations in Alaska are more limited and designed around discrete ‘critical’ areas as they are in the lower 48.”

This case was funded through the Statehood Defense budget requested by the governor and funded by the Alaska State Legislature. The fund is designated for fighting for our statehood promises and the right to be able to manage state resources.