Conservation of seals at Alaska

• Context (DTE): Scientists and Indigenous leaders team up to conserve seals at Yakutat, Alaska.

Ancestral balance between people and nature

• Migrating clans of the Eyak, Ahtna and Tlingit tribes settled the Yakutat fjord as the glacier retreated.
• Clan leaders managed the hunt to avoid premature harvesting, overhunting or waste.
• Tlingit residents continue this way of life in modern form, harvesting more than 100 different fish, birds, sea mammals, land game and plants for subsistence use.
• Harbour seals are the most important; their rich meat and blubber are prepared using traditional recipes and eaten at everyday meals and memorial potlatch feasts.

Reasons for decline

Commercial hunting

• The US purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 disrupted traditional sealing at Yakutat.
• Yakutat was a principal hunting ground for the new industry from about 1870 to 1915.
• Commercial hunting overtaxed seals’ capacity to reproduce, and the population crashed in the 1920s.
• In the 1960s, the rise in prices for skins led to hunting exceeding the sustainable yield.
• The seal population declined by 80 per cent—90 per cent.
• Commercial sealing ended in 1972 with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, yet seals never recovered.

Climatic factors

• Ocean warming, driven by global climate change and an unfavourable cycle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, has reduced the number of fish that are important in seals’ diets.

Conservation efforts

• Natives have changed their diet & reduced hunting, allowing the seals to raise their pups undisturbed.
• The community cooperates with the authorities to monitor and co-manage the herd, contributing their indigenous expertise.
• They have also been active in efforts to protect the seal rookery from disturbance by cruise ships.
• The Yakutat people are recommitting to ancestral principles of responsible care and spiritual regard for seals, seeking to ensure the species’ survival.