Western Distinct Population Segment Steller Sea Lion 5-Year Review: Summary and Evaluation
February 03, 2020
The Endangered Species Act requires, at least once every five years, a review of all threatened and endangered species to determine if they should be removed from the list of threatened or endangered species or if their listing status should be changed.
This review was authored by Kim Raum-Suryan and Dr. Lisa Rotterman of the Alaska Regional Office in consultation with Dr. Tom Gelatt, Dr. Brian Fadely, Dr. Michelle Lander, Kathryn Sweeney, Beth Sinclair, and other NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) staff. Primary sources of information are the many published papers, reports, and technical memoranda that have become available since the listing of the western distinct population segment (WDPS) Steller sea lion in 1997. These sources were augmented with recently-collected and analyzed Steller sea lion count data from AFSC and the lead Russian research coordinator, Dr. Vladimir Burkanov. We also considered information submitted through public comments. This document was reviewed by five external peer reviewers.