On the other hand, there are also many 

 species in danger in the east coast and gulf 

 fisheries. Three new aircraft have been 

 assigned to the New England area and one to 

 the Gulf of Mexico, but it seems reasonable 

 that additional vehicles may be desirable on 

 the east coast in the future even though fish- 

 ery areas there are concentrated and not 

 greatly increased by the move to the 200-mile 

 jurisdiction. 



As outlined by the Coast Guard, the 

 planned enforcement strategy of increasing 

 present capabilities is a reasonable first step. It 

 is flexible in that enforcement resources will 

 be added over a period of time and at a 

 moderate first cost. As experience is gained, 

 additional resources can be curtailed or ac- 

 celerated if original assumptions do not prove 

 out. 



The Coast Guard enforcement strategy is, 

 however, limited to preventing violations by 

 foreign fishermen. Presently, there is no plan- 

 ning within the Coast Guard to deal with 

 possible at-sea violations of the domestic fish- 

 ery regulations. Only two domestic manage- 

 ment plans have been drawn-up so far, but 

 other plans will be a major order-of-business 

 facing the Regional Councils in the future. 



In the past, enforcement in the domestic 

 fishery has been carried out by NMFS from 

 shore, where officials observe offloading, 

 weigh and inspect fish, and identify bycatch. 

 NMFS will continue its enforcement of 

 domestic fisheries from shore under the new 

 law. If this dockside effort were to be com- 

 bined with a program of boarding domestic 

 vessels for inspections, it would probably be 

 sufficient in most situations. 



However, if regulations for domestic fish- 

 eries duplicate many of the gear and opera- 

 tional controls used in foreign regulations, 

 some at-sea capability will be needed. 



In the event an at-sea capability is needed 

 for enforcement in domestic fisheries, the 

 Coast Guard could use the same types of 

 equipment and techniques planned for foreign 

 fisheries, but would need additional facilities 

 in order to cover the different areas used by 

 domestic fishermen and the many additional 

 fishing vessels of a greater variety of sizes and 

 types. 



Available information indicates that about 

 7,000 domestic vessels may spend most of 

 their fishing time in the 3- to 200-mile zone. 28 

 Although the domestic vessels catch far less 

 than the foreign vessels, domestic fisheries en- 

 forcement — ^in terms of fishing units to be 

 dealt with — is on a larger scale than foreign 

 enforcement. The cost of any deterrence 

 gained by domestic enforcement will also be 

 higher than for foreign enforcement. 



The Coast Guard has rightly given priority 

 status to planning for enforcement in foreign 

 fisheries. However, this OTA assessment indi- 

 cates that at-sea enforcement will also be 

 necessary in domestic fisheries in the near 

 future and planning for such a job should be 

 started as soon as possible. This will be a par- 

 ticularly sensitive enforcement job because 

 fishermen, a politically powerful group, have 

 traditionally enjoyed a great deal of freedom 

 in how they conduct their activities. 



37 



