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overfishing, expansion would be more gradual to allow for 

 stock rebuilding. 



The comparison between recent U.S. catch and the share 

 of the recent total that would be available to the United 

 States under its entitlement offers a rough approximation of 

 whether U.S. harvesters would be likely to benefit from or 

 be adversely affected by the proposed action in the short 

 term. This second comparison must be made in conjunction with 

 the first since it is not accurate in all cases to assme that 

 tag's under the proposed action could or would be set at the 

 level of recent total catches, as mentioned. 



Table III makes both comparisns for each stock covered 

 by the proposed action with the exception of offshore lobster 

 in Subdivision 5Ze (discussed with Other Fisheries). 



Table III demonstrates that short term supplies available 

 to harvesters are unlikely to be affected by the proposed 

 action for the majority of stocks covered. In most cases, 

 the shares available to the United States would be somewhat 

 greater under the proposed action than recent U.S. shares 

 of the total catch from the stocks. 



For five stocks, however, this is not the case. These 

 are: scallops in 5Ze, pollock in 4VWX+5, redf ish in 5, cusk 

 in 5Ze, and white hake in 5. Three of these stocks, 5Ze 

 scallops, 4VWX+5 pollock, and 5 white hake were exploited in 

 1978 at levels above the potential annual average. Overages 



