The Petersburg Borough Assembly passed a resolution on Sept. 15 calling on state and federal authorities for help dealing with rising sea otter populations. Petersburg now joins Wrangell and Haines in asking for stronger otter management.
The Petersburg resolution urges authorities and stakeholders to collaborate in creating a sea otter management plan. It also asks the federal government to loosen regulations for how Alaska Native subsistence hunters can use harvested sea otters. Currently, hunted sea otters can only be used as “authentic Native handicrafts.”
Multiple Assembly members voiced their support, including Rob Schwartz.
“I crabbed commercially for 35 years,” Schwartz said. “One of the reasons I got out is because we know we’ve seen this over the decades, the exponential increase in the population of the sea otters.”
Sea otters were once wiped out in Southeast Alaska due to the fur trade, but their population has skyrocketed since reintroduction to the region in the 1960s. Those sea otters consume a lot of shellfish, putting them at odds with fishermen.
Proponents for sea otter management say otters are causing trouble for the local economy and ecology because they’re depleting the shellfish resource and taking harvest from fisheries.
While this resolution doesn’t change state or federal law, it asks for disaster assistance for crab and dive fisheries in Southeast.
Both Mayor Mark Jensen and Vice Mayor Donna Marsh offered to recuse themselves for potential conflicts of interest. Jensen currently holds a commercial Dungeness crab permit. Marsh’s husband is a commercial crabber, and she has also previously held a crab permit. The Assembly allowed both Jensen and Marsh to vote on the resolution.
Marsh proposed an amendment to broaden who could legally take sea otters. Currently, sea otters are federally protected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, and can only be hunted by people who are one-quarter Alaska Native or an enrolled member of a coastal tribe.
The amendment, reviewed by the borough’s attorney, says that the Assembly would support regulations allowing sea otters to be taken by any Alaska resident with a valid hunting license.
The resolution with the added amendment passed 4-1, with Assembly member Jeigh Stanton Gregor opposed. He said he could not support the new amendment.
“I am definitely in favor of this resolution. I think action is needed on a variety of levels involving the sea otter population,” said Stanton Gregor. “But as far as I can tell, this resolution, if we include that amendment, would be in violation of federal law for the Marine Mammal Protection Act.”
This resolution is not legally binding; it’s a request for federal and state authorities to take action.