Steller sea lion Western DPS critical habitat for use in ESA/FIFRA consultations

Data creation process - 2007 Alaska sites west of 144 degrees W only.

SSL_226_Critical_Habitat_AK.shp (NAD_1983_Alaska_Albers)

The 131 sites from PART 226 - Designated [SSL] Critical Habitat as included are 20nm buffers from either points or lines. Points are small rookeries or haulouts. Lines are larger rookery/haulouts that follow the shoreline at mean lower low water. See 226/223 for additional information.

Since these points were identified before the advents of GPS units and unclear datums, some sites sit off in open water - as far as a 1/4 mile from the projected coastline.

The intent of making the points and lines shapefile was to follow 226 as close as possible. When 226 could not be followed due to a line that was supposed follow the shore at mean lower low water (when the points defining the start and end point of line was in open water), the intent of the regulation was followed as closely as possible. This was done in coordiation with the AKRO PRD SSL Coordinator.

SSL CH Foraging Areas overlap 20nm CH.

Data creation process 2009 - Oregon sites only.

StellerSLionCritHabAll4OR.shp (NAD_1983_Albers)

In the Code of Federal Regulations (50 CFR Part 226), the Appendix Table 1 to Part 226 - Major Steller Sea Lion Rookery Sites provides latitude / longitude basepoints along with the region and site names for the Steller sea lion rookeries used for critical habitat designations. However, the coordinates listed did not match up accurately with the data delineations from a number of sources for those rookery sites or the rocks or islands on which they are sited. Therefore, rather than using those basepoints to develop this data set, more accurate data was used to represent Pyramid Rock near Rogue Reef, and Long Brown Rock and Seal Rock, both in the vicinity of Orford Reef. The Pinniped Haulout data from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (2007) was used to locate the rookeries themselves. The Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge Boundary data from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2004) was used to delineate the shoreline of these islands and rocks. These 2 data sets were in agreement in that the rookeries were located within the shorelines of the islands / rocks. A 3,000 foot buffer was generated around the shorelines of these 3 islands or rocks to represent the critical habitat.

Data creation process 2016 - California sites only.

StellerSLionCritHab_OR_CA.shp (GCS_North_American_1983)

California sites appended to the Oregon data and shapefile renamed.

OR and CA source data converted to NMFS ESA critical habitat national standard 2020.

StellerSLionCritHab_OR_CA.shp (GCS_North_American_1983) geographic transformation -> SeaLionSteller_WesternDPS_19930827 (GCS_WGS_1984).

Geometry was not edited, attributes were edited. Copied metadata from source file and filled in additional metadata from final rule.

Combined old fields Region, Site_Name, AreaType into new field Unit. Edited Units for clarity, to match final rule, and to provide more accurate feature labels.

Data creation process - Alaska sites east of 144 degrees W only.

Southeast Alaska features were copied from Alaska Region's REST service https://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/ESA_data/MapServer/6.

Original source shapefile unknown.

All AK source data converted to NMFS ESA critical habitat national standard 2020.

AK data merged with OR/CA feature class (SeaLionSteller_WesternDPS_19930827) and renamed to SeaLionSteller_WesternDPS_19940615 because a technical amendment was found. Merge was necessary to follow main gdb business rule "each listed entity has a single ch feature class."

Edited Unit values by filling in "Island" for "I."

Edited the attributes (FRN, Publication Date, Effective Date) for 10 features that had data amended in 1994.

CFR notes: the 1999 amendment (64 FR 14067, Mar. 23, 1999) only changed the CFR section number for the Steller ch designation, the 1994 technical amendment (59 FR 30716, June 15, 1994) changed haulout data in Table 2 (pg 30715 says "The technical amendment revises regulations by changing the name of one designated haulout site from Ledge Point to Gran Point and by correcting the longitude and latitude of 12 haulout sites, including Gran Point. The purpose of this action is to correct errors in the published regulations.")

Note for future data development: In AK, there is a "3,000 ft landward zone" that's missing from the spatial data for Forrester Island and all the islands within the 20 nautical mile buffer. Flag: review Hazy Islands geometry.

As described above, this species’ HUC-based critical habitat dataset was modified from the polygon-based species “agency-official” NMFS critical habitat data. This HUC-based critical habitat file represents the HUC-12 watersheds (USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; https://www.usgs.gov/national-hydrography/watershed-boundary-dataset) that intersect with the “agency-official” critical habitat polygon-based data. The data were reviewed and revised to add any additional HUC-12 watersheds that were determined to have hydrologic connectivity to the critical habitat.