MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION — Annual Report for 1998 



Recommendations in the task force report ad- 

 dressed regulatory, technological, and financial issues 

 relative to pinniped-fishery interactions in the Gulf of 

 Maine. The report noted that in some cases federal 

 and state regulations may be restricting efforts to 

 reduce interactions by stifling the development of 

 innovative approaches. It recommended that the 

 Service and the Maine Department of Marine Re- 

 sources review regulations and revisit those measures 

 that may be limiting the ability of aquaculture opera- 

 tors to control seal predation by non-lethal means. 



With respect to technological mitigation alterna- 

 tives, the task force recommended that the State of 

 Maine survey pen and predator net designs currently 

 in use and compare salmon loss rates for various 

 designs. It further recommended that the Service and 

 the Maine Department of Marine Resources study new 

 materials and net designs and, as appropriate, develop 

 measures or netting to obscure or camouflage penned 

 fish. The report also called on the Service to under- 

 take research on the effects of acoustic deterrence 

 devices, and to sponsor workshops to review the best 

 available information on such devices and to foster 

 communication between the industry and experts in 

 acoustics and animal behavior. 



By Federal Register notice of 17 March 1997, the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service announced the 

 availability of a draft report to Congress on pinniped- 

 aquaculture interactions in the Gulf of Maine. The 

 Commission, in consultation with its Committee of 

 Scientific Advisors, reviewed the draft and provided 

 comments to the Service on 21 April 1997. The 

 Commission noted that both the Federal Register 

 notice and draft report implied that the Service had 

 concluded that it would be either impossible or 

 impracticable to construct seal-proof aquaculture 

 facilities. The Commission noted that such a conclu- 

 sion did not appear justified. 



The Commission further noted that the 17 March 

 Federal Register notice had indicated that the Service 

 was considering recommending that Congress reexam- 

 ine the Marine Mammal Protection Act's prohibition 

 on intentional lethal taking of pinnipeds so that the 

 Service could authorize intentional lethal methods on 

 a case-by-case basis, including the killing of pinnipeds 

 found inside net-pens. In its letter, the Commission 



concluded that such lethal taking would be justified 

 provided that (1) it is in fact impossible or impractica- 

 ble to construct aquaculture facilities that are seal- 

 proof; (2) the use of high-output acoustic harassment 

 devices have been shown to be ineffective, impracti- 

 cal, or harmful to target or non-target species; and (3) 

 the necessary "taking" authority cannot be obtained 

 through a waiver of the Act's moratorium on taking. 

 The Commission recommended that the report to 

 Congress be expanded to address each of these issues. 



On 1 August 1997 the Secretary of Commerce 

 submitted to Congress the Service's report on interac- 

 tions between pinnipeds and salmon aquaculture 

 resources in the Gulf of Maine. The report conclud- 

 ed, among other things, that (1) the salmon aquacul- 

 ture industry in the Gulf of Maine should collect data 

 on the extent of the impacts experienced by seal 

 attacks on net-pens; (2) primary responsibility for 

 preventing and mitigating the effects of seal attacks on 

 aquaculture resources should rest with the industry 

 itself; and (3) in the rare event that a seal enters a net- 

 pen, a grower may be placed in an intolerable situa- 

 tion with no legal means of resolution; in such a case, 

 lethal methods may be needed to resolve the situation. 



At the Commission's annual meeting in Portland, 

 Maine, on 10-12 November 1998, representatives 

 from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the 

 state of Maine addressed issues related to interactions 

 between harbor seals and aquaculture operations. As 

 noted, the August 1997 report prepared by the Service 

 placed considerable responsibility for alleviating the 

 problem on the aquaculture industry. It was apparent 

 from the discussions in PorUand, however, that the 

 industry has taken little initiative to date. Thus, there 

 remains a need to obtain information on the extent of 

 the problem and its impact on aquaculture. To do so, 

 Service officials indicated that they would contract 

 with a consultant who has worked with the industry to 

 compile existing data on the extent of seal predation 

 and measures being used to prevent such predation. 



The task force report recommended that growers 

 be authorized to kill seals that enter a net-pen when 

 there are no other means of resolving the problem. It 

 is possible that this recommendation will be addressed 

 during reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protec- 

 tion Act in 1999. 



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