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again transferred funds to the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service, this time to support development of a research and 

 studies plan for identifying the most effective methods for 

 mitigating marine mammal/fishery conflicts in the Columbia 

 River. The work is being done by researchers from the 

 Washington Department of Game as part of its fourth year of 

 work under the Columbia River Project. In February 1983, 

 the Commission reviewed and provided comments on the draft 

 of the third annual project report. 



Interactions off California 



Efforts to determine the nature and extent of marine 

 mammal/fishery interactions in California coastal waters 

 have been underway since 1979 as a cooperative project of 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service and the California 

 Department of Fish and Game. These investigations, reviewed 

 during the previously discussed Commission-sponsored workshop 

 on marine mammal/fishery interactions in 1981, were again 

 examined in 1982 during a Commission review of the marine 

 mammal research programs being conducted by the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service, Southwest Fisheries Center. 



At the 1982 program review, it was noted that: gill 

 netting is a cheap, non-labor-intensive way of fishing which 

 has attracted many immigrant as well as established fishermen; 

 the amount of gill and trammel net fishing and the number of 

 fishermen using entangling-type nets have increased dramatically 

 in central and northern California since 1979; and incidental 

 marine mammal take has increased accordingly. During a 

 portion of 1982, gill netting was prohibited in Monterey Bay 

 and this served to intensify gill netting pressures to the 

 north in Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties. As a 

 result, large numbers of harbor porpoise were killed in the 

 nets, especially those set for halibut and white croaker. 

 Elsewhere along the California coastline, pinnipeds, small 

 cetaceans, and sea otters were being killed in gill and 

 trammel nets as well. 



The nature and extent of this incidental take and 

 measures that might be used to reduce or avoid it were not 

 and are not well documented. For this reason, the Commission 

 transferred funds to the California Department of Fish and 

 Game in 1982 for a study to better determine the effects of 

 gill and trammel net fisheries on both target and non-target 

 species and to make recommendations for mitigating adverse 



