Environmental group sues for federal protection of ice seals

September 12, 2012|Reuters

* Obama administration accused of missing legal deadline

* Two seal species would follow polar bear in threatened

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Environmentalists
sued the Obama administration on Wednesday seeking federal
safeguards for seals that rely on vanishing Arctic sea ice and
accusing the government of dragging its feet in listing the
marine mammals under the Endangered Species Act.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit in
U.S. District Court in Anchorage, saying the National Marine
Fisheries Service has illegally delayed listings for the ringed
seal and the bearded seal.

Both dwell in coastal waters off northern Alaska.

In December 2010, the agency proposed listing both seal
species as threatened, a move that would make them the first
creatures besides polar bears granted Endangered Species Act
protections due to climate change in the Arctic.

But the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees
marine mammals, missed the statutory deadline to formally list
the seals, so the court should compel the agency to grant the
seals threatened status, the lawsuit argues.

Scientists have attributed the shrinking Arctic ice shelf to
a warming trend brought on by elevated levels of heat-trapping
"greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide emitted into Earth's
atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and other human

The bearded and ringed seal, like the polar bear, listed as
threatened in 2008, depend on Arctic ice floes to hunt for prey,
as well as to rest, give birth and nurse their young. Summer
sea-ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean is at the lowest recorded

"Global warming will impact ringed and bearded seals
directly by degrading and eliminating critical sea-ice habitat,
which will have devastating consequences by reducing adult
reproductive success and the survival of pups and impairing
their ability to molt," the lawsuit says.

Ringed seals also use snow caves to protect their young, so
the thinning Arctic snow pack puts "seal pups at higher risk of
death from freezing and predation," the lawsuit says.

The ice seals also face threats from offshore Arctic oil
development, such as exploratory drilling that Shell began over
the weekend in the Chukchi Sea, the plaintiffs said.

In its 2010 listing proposal, the marine fisheries service
agreed that Arctic climate change justifies Endangered Species
Act protections for the seals. Threatened listings would trigger
several safeguards for the animals, including conservation of
designated "critical habitat."

A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the parent agency for the marine fisheries
service, said the seal listings were still in the works.

"I just know that we are in process," said Julie Speegle, a
Juneau spokeswoman for NOAA. She declined to comment on the

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by Steve Gorman and Stacey