78 



Lack of funding, however, is not solely responsible for shortcomings. After a three- 

 year delay, a FMP for sharks was released this past spring. A plan for bluefin tuna remains 

 in the future. In May, 1992, a year and a half after the 1990 amendments, the agency 

 published its proposed process for implementing the provisions of the Act concerning the 

 management of highly migratory species in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and 

 Caribbean Sea. Just last month— nearly a year later and 30 months since the 1990 Amends— 

 the agency published its final process while the amount of time taken was troublesome, we 

 also were dismayed to find that many of the concerns we expressed about the initial approach 

 remain. 



We found that the highly migratory process proposal did not cover the scope of 

 responsibilities set out in the 1990 Amendments which provided: 



[t]he Magnuson Act, at 16 U.S.C. 1854(f)(3), requires that the Secretary 

 undertake the following three major categories of action regarding the 

 conservation and management of highly migratory species: 



1. Identification of research and information priorities, including 

 observer requirements and necessary data collection and analysis; 



2. Preparation and amendment of FMPs; and 



3. Diligent pursuit, through international management entities (such as 

 ICCAT), of international fishery management measures. (58 Fed Reg 

 4996 (Sept. 24, 1993)) 



NMFS addressed only the second category of actions. 



NMFS also declined to clarify the relationship between the FCMA and the ATCA in 

 terms of implementing ICCAT recommendations in situations where an FMP is not developed 

 for the subject species. The NfMFS implementing process provides that abbreviated 

 procedures provided for under ATCA "...wiU be used to implement ICCAT recommendations 

 for an interim period until FMPs are prepared for all the HMS designated by the Magnuson 

 Act..." (58 Fed Reg 49971 (Sept. 24, 1993)). Our recommendation suggested this should be 

 clarified to provide that the abbreviated process would be used only for those fisheries for 

 which an FMP had not been developed. We also pointed out that this did not relieve the 

 agency from the procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 

 but in the final rule, the agency did not sufficiently incorporate the requirements of NEPA 

 with regard to timing and public review. 



With regard to NMFS's management of specific highly migratory species under the 

 1990 Amendments, we would highlight for the Subcommittee the agency record on three 

 species-Atlantic bluefin tuna. Western Atlantic swordfish, and Adantic sharks-as compared 

 to prior work by the Fishery Management Councils on other billfish. 



Atlantic Bluefin Tuna. The National Audubon Society, Worid Wildlife Fund 

 and the Center for Marine Conservation are on record-through ICCAT Watch and other 

 forums— in support of a 50 percent reduction in current harvest levels. We will continue to 

 advocate that action with the Administration and at the International Convention on the 

 Conservation of Atiantic Tunas (ICCAT). We are dismayed over the reluctance of the 

 international authority to confront the 90 percent decline in the spawning population of the 

 western Atlantic bluefin since 1975. It has recently been estimated by the NMFS that had the 

 ICCAT Commission not raised the quota in 1983, the adult breeding population would now 

 be approximately 3.4 times today's population and would be increasing. 



According to the latest bluefin analysis, October 1993, by the ICCAT Standing 

 Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS), it is estimated that the "current exploitable 

 biomass of western Atlantic bluefui is between 8% and 26% of the level estimated for 1975 

 ....with recent exploitable biomass ...between 6% and 12% of that which could produce 

 MSY." The report concludes that catches at the 1992 level are likely to result in continued 

 decline in spawning population biomass. The 1993 analysis also found that the encouraging 



