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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 18, 2021 / Notices minimizing the severity of any potential exposures via shutdowns of the airgun array.
NMFS concludes that exposures to marine mammal species and stocks due to UAGIs survey would result in only short-term temporary and short in duration effects to individuals exposed, over relatively small areas of the affected animals ranges. Animals may temporarily avoid the immediate area, but are not expected to permanently abandon the area. Major shifts in habitat use, distribution, or foraging success are not expected. NMFS does not anticipate the authorized take estimates to impact annual rates of recruitment or survival.
In summary and as described above, the following factors primarily support our determination that the impacts resulting from this activity are not expected to adversely affect the species or stock through effects on annual rates of recruitment or survival:
No Level A harassment, serious injury or mortality is anticipated or authorized;
The activity is temporary and of relatively short duration 30 days;
The anticipated impacts of the activity on marine mammals would primarily be temporary behavioral changes in the form of avoidance of the area around the survey vessel;
Location of the survey is further north in the Arctic Ocean and away from areas where most of the species listed in Table 1 have been observed and is north of summer feeding areas and migratory routes.
The availability of alternate areas of similar habitat value for marine mammals to temporarily vacate the survey area during the survey to avoid exposure to sounds from the activity;
The potential adverse effects on fish or invertebrate species that serve as prey species for marine mammals from the survey would be temporary and spatially limited, and impacts to marine mammal foraging would be minimal;
and The mitigation measures, including visual monitoring, shutdowns, ramp-up, and prescribed measures based on energy size are expected to minimize potential impacts to marine mammals both amount and severity.
Based on the analysis contained herein of the likely effects of the specified activity on marine mammals and their habitat, and taking into consideration the implementation of the monitoring and mitigation measures, NMFS finds that the total marine mammal take from the activity will have a negligible impact on all affected marine mammal species or stocks.

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Small Numbers As noted above, only small numbers of incidental take may be authorized under sections 101a5A and D of the MMPA for specified activities other than military readiness activities. The MMPA does not define small numbers and so, in practice, where estimated numbers are available, NMFS compares the number of individuals taken to the most appropriate estimation of abundance of the relevant species or stock in our determination of whether the take is limited to small numbers of marine mammals. When the predicted number of individuals to be taken is fewer than one third of the species or stock abundance, the take is considered to be of small numbers see 86 FR 5322, January 19, 2021. Additionally, other qualitative factors may be considered in the analysis, such as the temporal or spatial scale of the activities.
There are several stocks for which there is no currently accepted stock abundance estimate. These include the fin whale Northeast Pacific stock, the minke whale Alaska stock, the narwhal Unidentified stock, the bearded seal Beringia stock, and the ringed seal Arctic stock. In those cases, qualitative factors are used to inform an assessment of whether the likely number of individual marine mammals taken is appropriately considered small. We discuss these in further detail below.
For all other stocks aside from those without accepted abundance estimates, the authorized take is less than 7
percent of the best available stock abundance, well less than the one-third threshold for exceeding small numbers and some of those takes may be repeats of the same individual, thus rendering the actual percentage even lower. We also acknowledge that, given the location of the planned survey activity high in the Arctic Ocean, the stock ranges referenced in the SARs do not always fully overlap the area of the planned survey activity. However, given the very small percentage of the best available stock abundance estimates for these species and the likelihood that the numbers of take authorized would be very small relative to any reasonable population abundance estimate, we conclude these numbers are small.
The stock abundance estimates for fin whale, minke whale, narwhal, bearded seal and ringed seal stocks that occur in the surveys area are unknown, according to the latest 2020 SARs Muto et al., 2021, Carretta et al., 2021.
Therefore, we reviewed other scientific information in making our small numbers determinations for these animals. The abundance estimate of
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20,000 minke whales was taken from the Northwest Pacific and Okhotsk Sea IWC 2021. In addition, as noted previously, partial abundance estimates of 1,233 and 2,020 minke whales are available for shelf and nearshore waters between the Kenai Peninsula and Amchitka Pass and for the eastern Bering Sea shelf, respectively. For the minke whale, these partial abundance estimates alone are sufficient to demonstrate that the authorized take number of 2 is of small numbers. The same surveys produced partial abundance estimates of 1,652 and 1,061
fin whales, for the same areas, respectively, which are similarly sufficient to demonstrate that the authorized take number of 2 is small numbers. The bearded seal estimate of 125,000 was estimated for the U.S.
portion of the Bering Sea Boveng et al., 2017 and 155,000 bearded seals for the entire Alaska stock Cameron et al., 2010. These partial abundance estimates near the survey are sufficient to demonstrate that the authorized take number of 916 seals is small numbers.
Similarly, the ringed seal abundance estimate of 171,418 ringed seals was based on a limited sub-sample from the Bering Sea Conn et al., 2014 in Muto et al., 2020. This minimal abundance estimate for the Alaska region is enough to demonstrate that a take of 10,373 will be small numbers at 6.05 percent of the Bering Sea population. There is no abundance information available for narwhals. However, the take number is sufficiently small 2 that we assume that it is small relative to any reasonable assumption of likely population abundance for the narwhal.
Additionally, the survey area encompasses a very small portion of the hypothesized range of the species.
Based on the analysis contained herein of the activity including the mitigation and monitoring measures and the anticipated take of marine mammals, NMFS finds that small numbers of marine mammals will be taken relative to the population size of the affected species or stocks.
Unmitigable Adverse Impact Analysis and Determination In order to issue an IHA, NMFS must find that the specified activity will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the subsistence uses of the affected marine mammal species or stocks by Alaskan Natives. NMFS has defined unmitigable adverse impact in 50 CFR
216.103 as an impact resulting from the specified activity: 1 That is likely to reduce the availability of the species to a level insufficient for a harvest to meet subsistence needs by: i Causing the
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