BY JEANNE PATTON AND KEN STUMP

Just as the spotted owl is an indicator species of a healthy forest ecosystem, the Steller sea lion, a predator at the top of the north Pacific food chain, acts as an indicator of the overall ocean ecosystem health. The Steller sea lions who inhabit the waters of the North Pacific Ocean have suffered the most dramatic population decline of any pinniped during the last 30 years.

Currently, the Steller is listed as a threatened species and it will soon be added to the endangered species list. A recent National Research Council study says the only factor deemed to have a "high likelihood" of explaining Steller decline is the overfishing of Steller prey. Greenpeace has maintained that industrial-scale, factory trawl fishing of pollock jeopardizes the Steller's survival. In August 1996, Greenpeace launched a campaign to ban factory trawlers in US waters and is now calling on Congress to conduct hearings on the National Marine Fisheries Service.

History of Steller sea lion decline

Between 1956 and 1960, Steller sea lion numbers were estimated at 240,000-290,000 worldwide. Although the species ranges from the North Pacific rim of California to the Korean Peninsula, the population centers of greatest abundance are found in Alaska, from the Kenai Peninsula in the Gulf of Alaska to the Central Aleutian Islands. During these same years, an incomplete survey showed 140,000 Stellers in this region.

In 1964, Japanese factory trawlers pioneered a new on-board processing technology which converts pollock (a primary prey for sea lions, fur seals, harbor seals and some sea birds) into surimi, a protein paste which has been widely used as imitation crab meat. During the first year after inventing this technology, Japan removed 175,000 tons of pollock from the eastern Bering Sea. Soviet factory ships soon joined the hunt. Between 1970-1976, over ten million tons of pollock were extracted from the eastern Bering Sea by foreign factory trawlers. In the early '80s, a 200-mile exclusive zone off the coast of all countries was established, yet in the US zone overfishing continued.

In this same time period, the first large declines of Stellers were recorded in the eastern Aleutian Islands. By 1985, only 68,000 Stellers were counted in rookeries from the Kenai Peninsula to Kiska Island in the central Aleutiansïa 48 percent decline from the 1960 population. Shortly afterwards in 1989, a survey of Steller rookeries indicated that the population in the same Kenai-to-Kiska area had plummeted to about 25,000 animals.

Factory trawlers -- breaking the food chain

Stellers may be deprived of suitable prey even when overall abundance of groundfish stocks are high. The time of year and location of fishery removals may be as important as the numbers of fish removed. For instance, pollock and mackerel catches in sea lion foraging areas increased dramatically throughout the 1980s. Trawl fishing of pollock has increasingly occurred during the winter months and has targeted spawning pollock whose roe (eggs) are prized by humans for their high market value and by sea lions for their high energy content. Energy-rich spawning pollock are vital to pregnant or nursing sea lions in crucial late-winter months. Depletion of this important food source may cause food-stressed females to abort fetuses or wean nursing pups before they are able to feed themselves. Evidence of nutritional stress in sea lions was observed in the Kodiak Island rookeries in the 1980s following the decimation of the spawning pollock stock. Surveys there revealed that sea lions, particularly females, weighed less, were in poorer condition and produced fewer pups than their counterparts of earlier years.

A weak response from the fisheries service

In 1988, it was proposed that the Steller be listed as a depleted species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The following year, a petition was submitted to the Secretary of Commerce to list Steller sea lions as endangered under provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), on behalf of 16 environmental groups. This prompted the Fisheries Service to publish an emergency rule listing the Steller sea lion as a threatened species in 1990. Ironically, that same year, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council proposed an 82 percent increase in the pollock quota in the Gulf of Alaska, as well as in the eastern Bering Sea. The Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion stating that a 40-percent increase in the Gulf of Alaska's total allowable catch was "not likely" to jeopardize the Steller sea lion. A legal challenge resulted in the establishment of no-trawl zones of 10-20 nautical miles around sea lion rookeries in western Alaska. However, the Steller is known to forage out to the continental shelf and the buffer zones have not afforded meaningful protection of one of the largest single-species fisheries in the world.

The Fisheries Service proposed in 1995 to uplist the western Alaskan Kenai-to-Kiska portion of the Steller sea lion stock from threatened to endangered because of continued Steller decline. Unfortunately, the Fisheries Service continues to miss uplisting deadlines and has failed to recommend any significant reduction of the pollock quota in the eastern Bering Sea. The bottom line is that the Fisheries Service has not addressed the link between pollock overfishing and Steller decline. The total allowable catch for 1997 remains at 1.1 million metric tons.

In 1997, two hard-hitting direct actions took place aimed at spreading awareness of these destructive fishing practices and physically stopping factory trawlers from leaving port. On January 2, 1997, activists confronted the world's newest factory trawler, the American Monarch. They attached a 30-foot banner that read, "American Monarch: Factory Trawler, Overfishing Permit Denied, Banned In Chile, Ban It Here," to the side of the ship docked in Seattle, Washington. This action was a follow-up to October '96 protests by Chilean fishermen and activists in Norway and Chile which resulted in the Chilean government's rejection of a fishing permit for the American Monarch.

If you'd like to voice your rage to the Secretary of Commerce, (who oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service) contact: US Secretary of Commerce, Washington, DC, 20230; phone (202) 482-2112; fax (202) 482-4576 and demand a rapid phase out of factory trawlers in US waters by the year 2001. The complete report, "Sinking Fast: How Factory Trawlers are Destroying US Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems" is posted on Greenpeace's website at http://www.greenpeace.org/~usa/campaigns/biodiversity.