Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON -- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday it will consider Endangered Species Act protections for ribbon seals in the Bering Sea, plus three other seal species that rely on sea ice for survival.

NOAA accepted a petition from a California environmental group seeking threatened or endangered status for the seals because their habitat is melting from global warming brought on by humans.

"While the four species of ice seals in Alaska all utilize various types of sea ice habitats, they use the ice in different ways," said Doug Mecum, acting administrator for the Alaska Region, in the announcement.

Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity and the lead author of the listing petition, said the agency's action is another important government recognition that the entire Arctic ecosystem is being threatened by global warming.

The group based its petition on projections that winter sea ice will decline 40 percent by mid-century. Wolf said the agency's proactive position came as a surprise, given that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is two and a half months overdue on a final decision to list polar bears as threatened due to global warming's effect on sea ice.<

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