Selective enforcement. I've seen it before where NMFS doesn't take legal action against a corporation that can afford a room full of lawyers, but instead takes legal action against a single private citizen who possibly has a single attorney who is out gunned and over-whelmed by the agency legal team. It's not cost effective in terms of resource protection and wise use of public funds. But I think the intent is to prevent a large number of private citizens from conducting actions that take listed species and be too numerous for the agency to contend with; i.e., if 500 people each went out and shot one seal that would tie up the entirety of LE and legal resources for years. Yet it wouldn't make a even a small dent in the harbor seal problem.