monitoring, however. In effect, the plan assumed that the 

 fishery will increase until an adverse impact on the monk 

 seals can be documented and evidence brought to the councils ' 

 attention. Because marine mammals are long-lived, a number 

 of years may pass before impacts of fisheries will be expressed 

 in terms of a detectable reduction in population size. The 

 minimization of risk of reducing monk seal populations in the 

 light of the conservation intents of the ESA and MMPA through 

 more gradual fishery growth would have been a more appropriate 

 council action. This plan illustrated differing assumptions 

 about acceptable risk and about where the burden of proof lies 

 for documenting risk or impact levels . 



Characteristics of Management Plans 



The ecosystem level management orientation of the ESA, 

 MMPA and FCMA was recognized in each of the four fishery man- 

 agement plans reviewed in detail. Unfortunately, that recog- 

 nition was reflected in OY selection and conservation and 

 management measures in only one plan, the Northern Anchovy 

 Management Plan. In that plan OY was selected to be consid- 

 erably less than MSY based on the ecological consideration 

 of predator food requirements . The selection of OY to be 

 75% MSY in the Squid Plan, in order to provide a safety mar- 

 gin in light of inadequate data, can serve as an example of 

 one type of action which might characterize an ecosystem lev- 

 el approach to fishery management. Consideration of the re- 

 quirement for a safety margin should include the ecological 

 role of the target species, and not simply reflect an impre- 

 cise MSY estimate in an essentially single species manage- 

 ment strategy. 



Endangered species and critical habitats are considered 

 explicitly in two of the management plans, the Northern An- 

 chovy Plan for the California pelican and the Spiny Lobster 

 Plan for the Hawaiian monk seal. However, the respective 

 councils have elected only to monitor the endangered species , 

 for which the councils will not themselves be responsible, 

 rather than to ensure that the proposed actions would not 

 have an adverse impact on endangered species as required by 

 the ESA. Thus the fishery management plans seem to fall 

 short of meeting the intents of the ESA. 



Similarly, marine mammals are mentioned in each of the 

 four plans reviewed. However, the question of optimum sus- 

 tainable population and maximum net productivity for marine 

 mammals was not addressed in any of the plans. The plans 

 should have at least indicated whether present data were 

 adequate for determining OSP levels. If the issue was con- 

 sidered by the councils, it was not reflected in the text 



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