UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN ... - Bizjournals

Case 1:13-cv-03241-AT Document 1 Filed 09/30/13 Page 55 of 64whales to be imported, only 10 (56%) are female and these are all young females.Older matriarchal adult females that are important in transmitting culturalinformation were not collected. Further, matrilineal systems are hierarchal,meaning only a portion of the adult females, none of which were collected, areresponsible for the bulk of the cultural transmission. Removal of a few youngfemales long before they can reach any level of hierarchal dominance is unlikely todisrupt existing or future matrilineal complexes. Given the relatively long life spanof these animals, their lifetime fecundity, the number of beluga whales in theSakhalin-Amur summer group, the associated number of matrilines (which couldnumber in the hundreds), and the small number of animals collected annually (ofwhich approximately half are males), the contention that the Russian collectionprogram consistently removes animals from a single matriline to the point ofdepletion is not mathematically supportable.127. Finally, Defendants assert in the permit denial that the collection ofthe 18 beluga whales may cause localized depletion and that this was considered inthe permit denial. Contrary to Defendants’ assertion, the collection of belugawhales in the Sea of Okhotsk will not cause localized depletion or have adversecumulative effects. To conclude otherwise implies that the collections come fromthe same groups or that the same whales are repeatedly captured and released. The55