57 



in that direction and there should be some strengthening in the 

 Magnuson Act that, on these allocative issues, that we should be 

 rewarding those gear types that have a diminished overall amount 

 of bycatch, period. 



In certain instances, in the trawl fisheries, if they can improve 

 their bycatch numbers substantially, that is good, but if there is a 

 situation where you have a gear type that fishes relatively clean, 

 as opposed to a gear type that even with improved standards or im- 

 proved efforts, that we ought to be moving in a direction of no 

 bycatch, because that would be the best possible scenario. 



Senator Stevens. Well, the largest amount of the discard, as I 

 understand it, is the discard because it is either undersized or over- 

 sized for the factory trawler. How would this approach impact that? 



That is an economic decision related to the size of the equipment 

 that is onboard, and I really think the only way to deal with that 

 is to have a requirement that that fish not be discarded, but it be 

 put in the tender and brought to some camp processor. Now, that 

 would be a real cost, but your proposal will not deal with that, will 

 it? 



Mr. O'Leary. Well, it will to the extent that it will force several 

 companies to harvest — use a different method to harvest the re- 

 source is what I am saying. 



Senator Stevens. You had — Trevor reminds us, you had the 

 same problem with the bycatch of halibut, right? How did you han- 

 dle that? 



Mr. O'Leary. I had the same problem 



Senator Stevens. With the bycatch. 



Mr. O'Leary [continuing]. Of halibut in the Gulf of Alaska? 



Senator Stevens. Yeah. 



Mr. O'Leary. Well, basically we were operating under a cap sys- 

 tem, and it is — when we cap out, our fisheries is shut down. Right 

 now the way the black cod fishery prosecute it, it is very, very dif- 

 ficult to get people to slow the pace of their fishery down to the 

 point where we can reduce mortality of halibut as we fish. 



Senator Stevens. You can't shut down this factory trawler fleet, 

 though, that is discarding because of the improper size of a portion 

 of their catch. That would not be effective, would it? 



Mr. O'Leary. I think over the long term we need to improve and 

 move to another gear type, is what I am trying to say, in certain 

 fisheries. It would be more appropriate for them to be harvesting 

 with a different gear type, for the companies to make a commit- 

 ment to going to a different gear type to harvest a certain resource. 



Senator Stevens. Ok. Ms. Stewart, you talked about the regional 

 directors having stronger closure authority, emergency closure au- 

 thority. Have you presented that to the council? 



Ms. Stewart. Yes. And Chris and I are both on MFAC. We pre- 

 sented that to Bill Fox, National Marine Fishery Service, and it is 

 a real concern. I think Steve Pennoyer, our current regional direc- 

 tor, moved from fish and game, where he had that kind of author- 

 ity, where he could say within 12 hours this fishery is going to 

 close. It works, it is reasonable. Everybody who is out fishing has, 

 or should have, electronics that make them able to be in touch. 



Right now you have to wait until it is published in the Federal 

 Register, where you have to play this game where you are trying 



