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East Coast Tuna Association 



P.O. Box 447. Saiem. N.H. 03079 

 Tai (603)898-8862 Fax 898-2026 



October 11. 1993 



Dr. James Baker, Under Secretary of 



Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere 

 Herbert Clark Hoover Building 

 14th Street and Constitution Avenue. N.W. 

 Washington. D.C. 20230 



Dear Dr. Baker: 



t apologize in advance for the length of this letter but a $32 million a year 

 U.S. bluefin tuna export industry is at stake. You have the authority to 

 restore a balanced U.S. bluefin policy and you bear the heavy responsibility 

 for any economic calamity that results from your Agency's 1994 bluefin 

 rulemaking. President Clinton, as a candidate, promised to "change" the 

 way government does its business and we have yet to see this from NOAA. 



The report of the ICCAT Bluefin Working Group is out and the results are 

 as we expected. You will recall that in our September 16 meeting and. 

 more recently in my September 27 letter to you. we expressed fear that 

 the seven Miami scientists would dominate and produce an unbalanced 

 assessment of the status of the Atlantic bluefin stock In the western 

 Atlantic. With the seven Miami scientists pressing three from Canada 

 and three from Japan, our fears have been realized. This assessment, if 

 believed, forecasts a maximum catch of 1200 MT for the next ten years If 

 the stock is to have a 50% chance of not declining. Such a catch 

 restriction would cut back U.S. access to the resource another 50% and, 

 for all practical purposes, end the commercial fishery and ruin the 

 existing bluefin recreational and commercial fishing infrastructures. 



If we thought the assessment were reasonably correct ECTA would 

 support wholeheartedly whatever measures were necessary to properly 

 manage the stock. However, there are too many other indicators that 

 convince us the assessment is wrong and not at all reflective of 

 the condition of the resource . These include the obvious abundance of 

 fish based on our pilots aerial census and visual observations of our 

 fishermen; the fact that the quotas in all categories were reached in 

 record time (meaning either a great deal more fishing effort this year 



