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Environmental groups sue to protect ribbon seals
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 03 - 09 - 2009

Ribbon seals should be listed as threatened or endangered because global warming is quickly
melting sea ice, which the seals depend on for several
months each year, AP quoted two environmental groups as saying in a
lawsuit filed against the federal government in San
Francisco today.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in
December denied a listing under the Endangered Species Act
for the seals found off the coasts of Alaska and Russia.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace sued in
U.S. District Court, claiming the agency ignored the best
science available on global warming. Shaye Wolf, a Center
for Biological Diversity biologist, said her group had
hoped NOAA officials would changes its conclusions with a
change in presidents.
«We've seen no change here,» she said. «The Obama
administration is continuing the flawed and
head-in-the-sand policies of the Bush years.»
NOAA spokeswoman Connie Barclay in Washington, D.C., had
no immediate comment on the lawsuit.
Ribbon seals are found in the Bering and Chukchi seas off
Alaska and the Sea of Okhotsk off Russia. Ribbon seals are
distinguished by the patterns of their fur that gives them
the coloration of a panda bear: white bands or ribbons that
encircle the head, base of the trunk and two front flippers
over a dark coat.
Federal biologists estimate the population at about
200,000 globally with a Bering Sea population of 100,000 or
more. During summer and fall, ribbon seals live entirely in
the water, foraging on fish, squid and crustaceans.
From March through June, the seals rely on loose pack ice
in the Bering and Okhotsk seas for reproduction and
molting, and as a platform for foraging.
Ribbon seals give birth and nurse pups, which can't swim,
exclusively on sea ice. Newborn ribbon seals have a coat of
soft, white hair called lanugo that provides insulation
until they grow a thick layer of blubber. Pups can survive
submersion in icy water only after they've formed the
blubber layer.
Diminished sea ice due to early melting also could affect
molting adults, according to the groups. New hair can only
grow when ribbon seals are out of the water where skin can
reach higher temperatures.
NOAA officials in December said climate models project
annual ice will continue to form for the seals each winter
during the critical birthing and molting period.
The lawsuit claims the agency is taking too shortsighted
of a look at the animals' plight, projecting ice loss out
only until mid-century.
Wolf said the agency's own data indicates sea ice extent
by 2050 will decline by 40 percent in April and 55 percent
in May. That by itself is a significant loss of key
habitat, she said.
«Imagine if that downward projection were extended beyond
2050, how much more ice the ribbon seal would lose,» she
said.
It's irrational to look only 43 years ahead, she said,
when reviews for polar bears and other species use climate
projections out 100 years.
The agency also did not consider whether climate change
and ice loss could affect a distinct population segment of
ribbon seals.
George Pletnikoff, a senior oceans campaigner with
Greenpeace who grew up on St. George Island in the Bering
Sea, said the federal government must fulfill it's mandate
to protect Arctic wildlife.
«The habitat of the ribbon seal is going away,» he said
Thursday. «They need to be protected. What else can we do?
What should we do?»


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