Sea Lions’ Decline Launched 150 Studies

In what may be among the most intense, well-funded investigations ever undertaken into a single species, scientists launched more than 150 studies this year to find out why the Steller sea lion population crashed and remains low.

Over the last four decades, the population plunged more than 80% in western Alaska, from almost 180,000 animals in the late 1960s to fewer than 30,000. The official listing of this western stock as endangered has threatened Alaska’s $1-billion ground-fishing industry.

That conflict, as much as the biological implications of a species sliding toward extinction, has spurred Congress to act.

Last month, Congress appropriated $40 million for Steller studies in 2002, boosting federal funding to more than $80 million in just two years.

The flood of money has generated laboratory experiments and field studies by hundreds of scientists spread among 25 government agencies, academic institutions and groups.

“I don’t think there’s anything really to compare it to,” said Bob Small, head of the 20-member recovery team formed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The sheer amount of money has astonished some scientists.

During the early November meeting of the federal Marine Mammal Commission in Anchorage, Chairman John Reynolds said: “It’s probably equal to all the U.S. funding spent on all the other species combined.”

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has made clear his hope that better knowledge of sea lions will help keep the valuable commercial fishery alive.

“Last year’s research funds are already paying dividends, and new research continues to disprove the link between fishing and the decline in sea lion populations,” he said in a written statement.