Chapter HI — Marine Mammal-Fisheries Interactions 



tions. Among other things, the workshop(s) should 

 consider the establishment of thresholds below which 

 exploitation of fish stocks should be prohibited; 

 guidelines and procedures for addressing uncertainty 

 with respect to the status of and functional relation- 

 ships among fisheries resources and other components 

 of the ecosystems; and research and management 

 programs needed to fill critical gaps in our knowledge 

 of the structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems. 



The National Marine Fisheries Service's 

 Proposed Regime 



The 1988 amendments to the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act directed the Secretary of Commerce, 

 after consultation with the Marine Mammal Commis- 

 sion, Regional Fishery Management Councils, and 

 other interested agencies and organizations, to publish 

 by 1 February 1991 a suggested regime to govern 

 incidental taking after 1 October 1993. The amend- 

 ments mandated that the suggested regime include 

 proposed scientific guidelines to be used in determin- 

 ing permissible levels of incidental taking, a descrip- 

 tion of the arrangements for consultations with other 

 agencies and interested parties, and a summary of the 

 regulations and legislation necessary to implement the 

 suggested regime. After consultation with the Com- 

 mission and consideration of public comment on the 

 proposed regime, the Secretary is to provide to 

 Congress, by 1 January 1992, the suggested regime, 

 recommendations for legislation to implement the 

 regime, and a proposed schedule for implementation. 



The National Marine Fisheries Service, on 24 May 

 1991, published its proposed regime for public review 

 and comment. In addition, a Draft Legislative Envi- 

 ronmental Impact Statement on the Service's proposal 

 was made available for public review and comment. 

 In many respects, the Service's proposal closely 

 followed the guidelines recommended by the Commis- 

 sion. Among other things, the Service's proposal 

 would: (1) retain the Act's goal of reducing inciden- 

 tal kill and serious injury of marine mammals to 

 insignificant levels approaching a rate of zero; (2) 

 allow incidental taking from stocks designated as 

 depleted only in compliance with approved conserva- 

 tion plans for such stocks; (3) require vessel owners 

 operating in certain fisheries to register with the 

 Service; (4) prohibit fishing as well as incidental 

 taking absent required registration and incidental take 



authorization; (5) grant the Service authority to place 

 observers aboard any vessel operating in any commer- 

 cial fishery; (6) allow assessment of a user fee to 

 cover administrative costs associated with the pro- 

 gram; and (7) enable the Service to require fishermen 

 to contribute funding for unusual monitoring require- 

 ments associated with some fisheries. The Service 

 proposed that the new regime be implemented over a 

 two-year period beginning in 1993. 



The primary difference between the Service's 

 proposed regime and that recommended in the Com- 

 mission's guidelines was the addition of an allowable 

 biological removal concept. The total removal of 

 animals ft-om a population from all sources, including 

 subsistence takes, taking incidental to commercial 

 fishing and other activities, and taking for public 

 display and scientific research, for any year could not 

 exceed the estimated allowable biological removal 

 level. 



Under the Service's proposal, an allowable biolog- 

 ical removal would be calculated for each marine 

 mammal stock by multiplying the estimated minimum 

 abundance of the stock by the best estimate of the 

 stock's maximum annual net productivity rate and by 

 a recovery factor, which would vary depending on the 

 status of the stock relative to its carrying capacity. In 

 making these calculations, the Service proposed to use 

 a conservative measure of minimum stock abundance 

 such as the lower limit of the 95 percent confidence 

 interval of the estimated stock size or an actual count 

 of animals. Default values for maximum net produc- 

 tivity rates of six percent for pinnipeds and sea otters 

 and two percent for cetaceans and manatees would be 

 used when specific information on net productivity 

 rates is unavailable. Recovery factors would depend 

 upon a qualitative estimate of a stock's status and 

 would be 0.9 for stocks believed to be above two- 

 thirds of carrying capacity, 0.5 for stocks between 

 one-third and two-thirds of carrying capacity, and 0. 1 

 for stocks below one-third of carrying capacity or for 

 which information necessary to make such a determi- 

 nation is unavailable. 



To provide information necessary to calculate 

 allowable biological removal levels, the Service would 

 prepare a stock assessment report for each affected 

 stock at least once every three years. Stock assess- 

 ment reports would be evaluated by scientific review 



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