18 



latively. Unfortunately, that is something that should be addressed 

 administratively. 



Mr. Manton. Thank you. I see my time for questioning has ex- 

 pired. 



Mr. Torkildsen from Massachusetts. 



Mr. Torkildsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend 

 you for having the panel here today. It is great when we can have 

 regulators and regulatees all at the same table. 



If I could start off asking Dr. Foster and Dick Stone, could you 

 comment on Mr. Hesse's testimony? Do you agree or disagree with 

 what he said, because there were some very strong statements that 

 he made. What Mr. Hesse said, was similar to things I was told up 

 in my district, in the community of Gloucester just several weeks 

 ago. So could you comment on it from your perspective? 



Dr. Foster. You mean specifically about the science? 



Mr. Torkildsen. About the science, about the whole process by 

 which the season was closed, the whole overall point that I see 

 about trying to regulate a highly migratory species and whether or 

 not it can be done under the existing framework that we have 

 right now. 



Dr. Foster. In looking for ways to assign quotas to the various 

 categories, there is actually no right or wrong way to do it. We de- 

 cided to do it by looking at historic catches and then assigning the 

 quotas, as I understand the process, and Dick certainly knows a lot 

 more about it than I do because he watches it on a day-to-day basis. 

 In the commercial catches we get information on a daily basis, and 

 for the recreational catches, we get information on a weekly basis. 



When looking at last year's recreational catch, the take was 

 much under the quota and that was carried forward into this year. 

 For the first part of the season, we were seeing the catches at a 

 very low level on a weekly basis. When the commercial category, 

 the general category ran into problems, we expected that the an- 

 gling category would not make their quota, so we decided to reas- 

 sign quota. About the time that we did that, we saw a jump for the 

 angling category. 



Mr. Torkildsen. Start to increase? 



Dr. Foster [continuing], go up, and it just worked out that once 

 we had taken the 30 metric tons, we then saw them probably quad- 

 ruple the take that we had been seeing earlier on. Because, you 

 see, this kind of a system is clearly imperfect, and I should say, not 

 extremely precise, because you are always estimating, you are pre- 

 dicting based on what happened before, based on what you know, 

 based on what you think, and actually we think we have done a 

 pretty good job, but we are always looking for ways to improve this 

 and are open to suggestions. 



Mr. Torkildsen. The other statistic which was presented to me, 

 several weeks ago is that the catch for eastern Atlantic countries 

 has increased 31 percent, since 1982, against a decline for U.S. 

 catch. 



Can you comment on that? And indeed if we are looking at con- 

 servation, why a disparity? If the United States is reducing its 

 take, why aren't other countries as well? Do we have the ability to 

 coordinate a reduction with other countries, or are we trying to 



