Report of the Alaska Region and Alaska Fisheries Science Center Northern Ful Seal Tagging and Census Workshop. Held in Seattle, Washington on September 6-9, 2005.

摘要: The northern fur seal is listed as 'depleted' in U.S. waters under The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a conservation plan is required for all depleted species to assist management and research agencies in recovering the population. In 1993, the Northern Fur Seal Conservation Plan was adopted and has guided northern fur seal research over the past decade. In 2005, the conservation plan was reviewed and updated to reflect the current trends in the population and new biological information. One recommendation of the revised conservation plan was to gather current demographic information on northern fur seal populations. This workshop was convened to outline an approach for a robust marking program that can provide the demographic data necessary to build population models that are needed to assist management in the recovery process for the northern fur seal population. The working group evaluated permanent marking methods including various tagging options, tattoos, hot branding, freeze branding, radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs), natural markings, and new technologies to uniquely identify northern fur seals. The workshop participants also discussed study designs and statistical methods to obtain and analyze demographic data. In addition, the working group examined the current methods of estimating abundance based on direct counts and shear-sampling mark-recapture of pups and discussed alternative methods of population assessment.