NMFS Biological Opinion on U.S. Navy training ... - Govsupport.us

FINAL PROGRAMMATIC BIOLOGICAL OPINION ON U.S. NAVY ACTIVITIES IN THE HAWAII RANGE COMPLEX 2008-2013
Pacific right whales, 3,000 close approaches of sei whales, and 20,020 close approaches of sperm whales per year in
the Pacific Ocean for these purposes. In addition, existing permits authorize close approaches to collect biopsy
samples of 985 blue whales, 2,385 fin whales, 3,210 humpback whales, 60 north Pacific right whales, 520 sei
whales, and 1,325 sperm whales per year in the Pacific Ocean.
The actual number of close approaches does not appear to have closely approximated the number of close
approaches authorized by existing permits. Nevertheless, because existing permits authorize the number of close
approaches identified in Table 5, nothing prevents the different whale species from being exposed to those levels of
close approaches by different investigators each year.
After decades of this research, the consequences of these levels of close approaches on the population ecology of
endangered whales remains unknown (Moore and Clarke 2002). This is particularly problematic because so much
research occurs in areas that are critical to the population ecology of whales, such as the calving areas in Hawai’i
and feeding areas in Alaska. Events or activities that disrupt the behavior of animals in these critical areas could
have substantial, long-term consequences for their ecology.
The Impact of the Baseline on Listed Resources
Although listed resources are exposed to a wide variety of past and present state, Federal or private actions and other
human activities that have already occurred or continue to occur in the action area as well as Federal projects in the
action area that have already undergone formal or early section 7 consultation, and State or private actions that are
contemporaneous with this consultation, the impact of those activities on the status, trend, or the demographic
processes of threatened and endangered species remains largely unknown.
Historically, commercial whaling had occurred in the action area and had caused all of the large whales to decline to
the point where the whales faced risks of extinction that were high enough to list them as endangered species. Since
the end of commercial whaling, the primary threat to these species has been eliminated. However, all of the whale
species have not recovered from those historic declines and scientists cannot determine if those initial declines
continue to influence current populations of most large whale species. Species like Pacific right whales have not
begun to recover from the effects of commercial whaling on their populations and continue to face very high risks of
extinction in the foreseeable future because of their small population sizes (on the order of 50 individuals) and low
population growth rates. Relationships between potential stressors in the marine environments and the responses of
these species that may keep their populations depressed are unknown.
Recent attention has focused on the emergence of a wide number of anthropogenic sound sources in the action area
and their role as an pollutant in the marine environment. Relationships between specific sound sources, or
anthropogenic sound generally, and the responses of marine mammals to those sources are still subject to extensive
scientific research and public inquiry but no clear patterns have emerged. In contrast the individual and cumulative
impacts of human activities in the Hawai’ian Archipelago have only been subjected to limited levels of scientific
investigation. As a result, the potential consequences of these activities on threatened and endangered marine
mammals remains uncertain.
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