September 28, 2024 — It’s back to the drawing board for the federal agency tasked with designating critical habitat for ringed and bearded seals in Alaska after a federal judge sided on Thursday with the state, which said the agency overreached in the protections.
In 2022, the National Marine Fisheries Service designated over 160 million acres of water spanning from the Alaska shoreline to the international dateline in much of the Bering Sea, as well as the shelf of the Beaufort Sea and all of the Chukchi Sea, as critical habitat for the seals.
Alaska sued the agency and the Center for Biological Diversity which intervened in the case, in early 2023, describing the designation as unprecedented and accusing the agency of violating environmental laws.
U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason agreed with the state that the National Marine Fisheries Service didn’t act in accordance with the Endangered Species Act when making the designations.
“Simply because NMFS is unable to identify a less extensive, specific geographic location for breeding or molting does not explain why the 160-million-plus-acre areas it identified as critical habitat are ‘necessary’ or ‘indispensable,’” the Barack Obama appointee wrote of ensuring the seals’ survival and recovery.
The service listed both subspecies of seals — the Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia distinct population segment of bearded seals — as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2012. The listing granted the seals more protections, including the designation of critical habitat.