Marine Mammals; Incidental Take During Specified Activities

These regulations authorize the incidental, unintentional take of small numbers of polar bears and Pacific walrus during year- round oil and gas industry (Industry) exploration, development, and production operations in the Beaufort Sea and adjacent northern coast of Alaska. We made a finding that the total expected takings of polar bear and Pacific walrus during oil and gas industry exploration, development, and production activities will have a negligible impact on these species and will have no unmitigable adverse impacts on the availability of these species of subsistence use by Alaska Natives. We base this finding on results from 6 years of monitoring interactions between marine mammals and Industry and using oil trajectory models and polar bear density models to determine the likelihood of impacts to polar bears should an accidental oil release occur.