warning aerial survey network to alert ships in transit of the presence of right whales. The 

 northeast team met several times in 1995 to consider a similar early-warning network in the 

 northeast and options to seasonally limit fishing gear known to entangle whales in high-use right 

 whale habitats. Little progress was made. 



Gulf of Maine Harbor Porpoises — The largest incidental take of any cetacean in U.S. 

 waters is the catch of harbor porpoises in the sink gillnet fishery off New England. Estimated 

 take levels ranged between 1,200 and 2,900 porpoises per year during the early 1990s. 

 Additional animals from the same stock are taken in gillnet fisheries in the Bay of Fundy, 

 Canada, and in coastal waters between New York and North Carolina. The total take is believed 

 to exceed the stock's sustainable replacement level and, with no measures in place to reduce the 

 take, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed listing the stock as threatened in 1993. 



In 1992 fishermen and scientists supported by the Service began testing acoustic devices 

 to reduce porpoise bycatch. Tests late in 1994 were promising and fishing was permitted in 

 several otherwise closed areas by vessels using pinger-equipped nets in 1995. Other 

 management efforts, however, were less successful. The New England Fishery Management 

 Council, at the request of the Service, recommended time-area closures for sink gillnets; these 

 were instituted in spring 1994 in an attempt to reduce take levels by 20 percent. They 

 apparently did not prevent a substantial increase in bycatch levels in 1994. In 1995 the Service 

 was able to complete only preliminary analyses of 1994 bycatch data, and the delay contributed 

 to a lag in instituting stronger measures in 1995. 



In 1995, pursuant to the 1994 amendments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the 

 Service completed a stock assessment for Gulf of Maine harbor porpoises. It concluded that the 

 stock's potential biological removal level is 403 porpoises a year and that the stock is a strategic 

 stock. Therefore late in 1995 the Service took steps to convene a take reduction team. The 

 team will have six months to develop a recommended plan to reduce incidental-take levels so 

 that total human-caused mortality does not exceed 403 porpoises per year. Statutory time frames 

 for implementing the plan call for measures to be in place early in 1997. 



Marine Mammal-Fisheries Interactions (Chapter IV) 



Marine mammals are caught and killed incidentally in commercial fisheries, damage 

 fishing gear and caught fish, and compete with fishermen for fish and shellfish. In 1994 the 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act was amended to establish a new regime to govern the incidental 

 take of marine mammals in fisheries. The regime requires development of stock assessments 

 for each marine mammal stock in U.S. waters to provide a scientific basis for management 

 actions, a system for classifying individual fisheries by the frequency with which they take 

 marine mammals, registration and reporting requirements for fishermen, and the development 

 of measures to reduce incidental taking to specified levels. 



In consultation with the Commission and others, the National Marine Fisheries Service 

 and the Fish and Wildlife Service developed, and in 1995 completed, stock assessments for 145 



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