EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 



This is the 23rd Annual Report of the Marine Mammal Commission and its Committee 

 of Scientific Advisors on Marine Mammals. The Commission was established under Title II of 

 the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to provide an independent source of policy and 

 program guidance to Congress, the Executive Branch, and Federal agencies on domestic and 

 international activities affecting marine mammal conservation. 



The purpose of this report is to provide timely information on marine mammal-related 

 issues and events to Congress, Federal and state agencies, public interest groups, the academic 

 community, private citizens, and the international community. When combined with previous 

 annual reports, it provides a historical record of the nation's progress in developing policies and 

 programs to conserve marine mammals and their habitat. To ensure factual accuracy, the draft 

 report was provided to relevant federal and state agency representatives and other involved 

 persons for comment. The contents of the report are briefly described below. 



Introduction (Chapter I) 



Members of the Commission, its Committee of Scientific Advisors on Marine Mammals, 

 and staff are listed in this chapter along with a brief summary of the Commission's recent 

 funding history. The Commission's fiscal year 1995 appropriation was $1,384,000. 



Reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protection Act 

 and Related Legislation (Chapter II) 



Federal actions to conserve marine mammals are guided by several key laws, the most 

 important of which is the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. In 1994 Congress amended 

 that Act, reauthorizing its funding provisions through 1999 and making certain other changes. 

 Perhaps the most significant amendments are those to establish a new regime for managing 

 interactions between individual marine mammal stocks and commercial fisheries. In part, they 

 call for assessments of the status of each marine mammal stock in U.S. waters and for measures 

 to reduce the bycatch that may be impacting marine mammal stocks determined to be strategic 

 by virtue of their reduced or declining status. Other significant amendments change Federal 

 responsibility for regulating the care and maintenance of captive marine mammals, streamline 

 permitting processes for scientific research and for the take of small numbers of marine 

 mammals by harassment incidental to various other human activities, provide for importing polar 

 bear hunting trophies from Canada, and require analyses of the health and stability of marine 

 ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine and the Bering Sea. Chapter II provides an overview of these 

 changes and identifies sections of the report that discuss actions by the Commission and others 

 to implement the amendments. 



