Last week, a scientific panel put together by the states of Alaska and Washington quietly released a draft report on the management of Steller sea lions, an issue that’s been at the center of controversy in the Aleutian region for years.

The document is a critique of the National Marine Fisheries Service 2010 biological opinion on the endangered western stock, who have continued to see their population shrink and their birth rates decline. That BiOp determined that the commercial fishing fleet was likely creating competition for food, and it led to the closures of the Atka mackerel and Pacific cod fisheries in the western Aleutians. It also resulted in an outcry from the fishing industry and litigation from the State of Alaska and others.

The draft report suggests those closures might not have been warranted. The four-person panel writes that they were not convinced by NMFS rationale for closing the fishing grounds and that they did not believe that NMFS gave enough weight to the theory that the population decline could be connected to killer whale predation or that it might be the result of the sea lions eating the equivalent of marine mammal junk food.

KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez has more.