Chapter IX — Marine Mammal Permits 



Applicant 



Final Departmental Action 



~~r 



Department of 

 Commerce 



T 



T 



Application 



Department of 

 the Interior 



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Department of 

 Commerce 



Department of 

 the Interior 



Commission Recommendations 



ze: 



z 



Complete Application 



Marine Mammal Commission 



I 



Committee of Scientific 

 Advisors on Marine Mammals 



Figure 15. Process by which permit applications to take marine mammals are reviewed. 



The total review time for a permit (from initial 

 receipt of an application at the Service until final 

 departmental action is taken) depends on many fac- 

 tors, including the completeness of the information 

 provided by the applicant, any special requirements 

 that must be satisfied before the application can be 

 processed, and the efficiency of the agencies. 



During 1998 the Commission, in consultation with 

 its Committee of Scientific Advisors, provided recom- 

 mendations on 27 permit applications submitted to the 

 Department of Commerce and 16 applications submit- 

 ted to the Department of the Interior. Of these, six 

 awaited final action by the Department of Commerce 

 at the end of 1998; none were pending final action at 

 the Department of the Interior. The Commission's 

 average review time — from the point at which the 

 application was considered complete to the submission 

 of the Commission's final letter of recommendation — 

 for the 43 applications on which it commented in 1998 

 was 29 days (range: 9-47 days). The Commission 

 also made recommendations on 43 requests to amend 

 permits in 1998. The average time for Commission 

 review of these requests was 28 days. 



The Department of Commerce issued 21 permits 

 during 1998, including five permit applications that 

 had been received in 1997. The average processing 

 time, from the date the application was received by 

 the Department until final action was taken, was 112 

 days (range: 56-270 days). The Department of the 

 Interior issued 16 permits during 1998, including six 

 applications that had been received in 1997. The 

 average processing time, from the date the application 

 was received by the Department of the Interior until 

 final action was taken, was 139 days (range: 53-489 

 days). If calculated from the date the department 

 considered an application to be complete, the average 

 processing times for the Departments of Commerce 

 and the Interior in 1998 were 94 and 125 days, 

 respectively, compared with 99 and 75 days in 1997. 



Recreational Interactions with 

 Marine Mammals in the Wild 



In recent years, there has been a widely recog- 

 nized, but largely unquantified, increase in activities 

 involving direct interactions between members of the 



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