Unalaska, AK – In Anchorage, attendees at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting have spent past the week worrying about Steller sea lions. They've been waiting to hear if the National Marine Fisheries Service will put in place major fishing restrictions to protect the endangered species and wondering how strict those measures will be.

But in the Pribilof Islands, there has only been good news about the Steller sea lions coming from NMFS. The agency is awarding $158,000 to the St. Paul tribal government as part of the Species Recovery Grants to Tribes program.

That funding will be used to study the sea lion diet. For the next three years, a small team will primarily be looking at the type of fish the Steller sea lions eat. And because some residents of St. Paul hunt the sea lions for subsistence, they'll also be measuring for contaminants.

Phillip Zavadil is the director of the ecosystem conservation office for the tribal government of St. Paul, and he explains why his community is so concerned about the decline of the sea lion population.

"The population of Steller sea lions needs to remain stable for a few reasons," says Zavadil. "One, just so those animals are around and part of the ecosystem. Two, and probably most important for the community is the customary and traditional practice of hunting Steller sea lions, eating sea lions and sharing that with people in the community remains intact."

In August, NMFS released its draft biological opinion on Steller sea lions and proposed the closure of the Atka mackerel and Pacific cod fisheries in the Western Aleutian Islands. That's because of concern that the sea lions might be competing with commercial fishermen for food, which could be contributing to their decline. Since the St. Paul team will be monitoring what fish the sea lion consume, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be paying close attention to their results. But Sean Ledwin, who is an ecologist with NOAA fisheries, says that the project mostly has value for its local relevance.

"The data will probably get used in any analyses we do and potentially get used in management decisions," says Ledwin. "But the data has to speak for itself."

NMFS also awarded grants to four other tribal governments across the United States for the purpose of protecting threatened species. The Makah Tribe in Washington was another grant recipient, and it will also be focusing on Steller sea lions -- in addition to studying threats to humpback whales and Southern Resident killer whales. The grants are for this fiscal year and they amounted to nearly $1 million, and this is the second year the program has been in place.