to be below optimum levels, it would be "depleted" under the 
provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act as they have 
been interpreted. As such, no incidental taking of animals 
from that depleted population would be permissible and 
amendment of the current regulations and quotas for the 1980 
season would be necessary in order to prohibit the taking of 
northern offshore spotted porpoise. The regulations for the 
1980 fishing season permitted the U.S. fleet to kill up to 
21,300 offshore spotted porpoise (including both the northern 
and southern populations) and it was estimated that approximately 
70 percent of the yellowfin tuna taken in recent years has 
been caught principally in association with the northern 
offshore spotted population. 
In light of the importance of these conclusions, the 
National Marine Fisheries Service, after consultation with 
the Commission, published an Advance Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking on 23 November 1979 indicating its intent to 
reconsider the existing regulations governing the incidental 
taking of porpoise and to consider the regulatory regime 
that would be appropriate beyond 1980. The Notice indicated 
that the Service had determined that although a formal 
hearing was not necessarily required for adjustments of the 
1980 quotas, it felt that a formal hearing before an administrative 
law judge was the best means of reviewing the conclusions of 
the Workshop Report and other relevant information concerning 
the quotas for 1980 and thereafter and of affording full due 
process rights to all interested parties. 
Proposed regulations were published by the National 
Marine Fisheries Service in the Federal Register on 15 February 
1980 (45 FR 10552-10562) and a formal administrative hearing 
was conducted before an administrative law judge in San 
Diego, California from 31 March through 5 April 1980 and in 
Washington, D.C. on 14-18 April and 19 May 1980. Representatives 
of the Commission testified and filed briefs in support of 
the proposed regulations, the central features of which 
would have designated the northern offshore spotted population 
as well as the eastern spinner population as depleted and 
prohibited intentional setting on those species and established 
revised quotas for other non-depleted species for 1980 and 
1981. The status of the northern offshore spotted population 
was the most controversial and difficult issue involved in 
the hearing. While recognizing that the available information 
was not complete and that further research and analyses were 
desirable, the Commission argued in its testimony and briefs 
that the available data and theory strongly suggested that: 
the maximum net productivity level which serves as the lower 
bound of the range of optimum sustainable population for the 
sso = 
