Marine Mammals; Incidental Take During Specified Activities

The Fish and Wildlife Service hereby issues final regulations to 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 clarified types of activities covered by this incidental take authority that were identified in our proposed regulations issued on November 17, 1998 (63 FR 63812), and they are essentially identical to activities covered by our original 5-year incidental take regulations effective from December 16, 1993, through December 15, 1998. As allowed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (Act), these final regulations are effective through January 30, 2000, during which time we will consider new information associated with sub-sea pipelines to evaluate the scope of activities that will be covered in a future rule. It is our intention next year, at a minimum, to propose to extend these regulations for an additional four years for the activities described in this rule. As noted below, these regulations do not address or authorize incidental takes resulting from sub-sea pipeline activities located offshore in the Beaufort Sea.