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adept at interfering destructively in fisheries issues and circumventing due 

 process in fisheries management, reacted with absurd irresponsibility. Language 

 inserted by Louisiana Senator John Breaux in the last reauthorization prohibited 

 "any measures... to reduce incidental mortality of nontarget fishery resources in 

 the course of shrimp trawl fishing" for three years. Unfairly favoring shrimpers 

 at the expense of other fishermen (which, ironically, appears to violate the 

 Magnuson Act's National Standards), this temporary exemption was recently 

 extended. This is the Act's only policy on bycatch. Meanwhile, billions of 

 juvenile fish-- the potential future paychecks of snapper and grouper fishers- are 

 shoveled overboard dead annually. 



Though severe and systematic overfishing is emptying our oceans and 

 destroying fishing communities, unless we stem the ongoing loss and degradation 

 of habitats we can abandon hope for the future restoration of our fisheries. 

 Rivers, wetlands, estuaries, reefs, seagrass meadows and mangroves are not 

 external to the nation's economy. They provide (free of charge) the breeding, 

 feeding, and nursery grounds for the resources that fisheries rely on. For 

 example, roughly seventy percent of the U.S. fish catch is made up of species that 

 are dependent on estuaries for at least part of their life cycle. In parts of the Gulf 

 of Mexico, 98 percent of the fish caught are estuary-dependent. The effect of the 

 loss of coastal wetlands can be immediate and permanent. There is a direct 

 relationship between the pounds of shrimp landed and the area of estuary 

 vegetation in locales along our Gulf coast; Where wetland area is large, shrimp 

 landings are high. Where wetland area is small, shrimp landings are low. Over 

 the last 15 years, landings offish that depend on estuaries have fallen nearly 30 

 percent on the Gulf coast as habitat has declined, though fishing effort increased. 

 In addition to problems of outright destruction are the more subtle (to us, though 

 perhaps not to marine life) problems of degraded water quality from sediment 

 and excessive nutrient runoff, and from pesticides and other toxics that affect 

 marine life. 



Particularly for those species that ascend rivers to spawn, such as salmon, 

 striped bass, sturgeon, shad, and many others, loss and degradation of habitat- 

 not overfishing- is the leading cause of depletion. For example, the inspiring 

 salmon that once found their way by their millions from mid ocean to the rivers 

 of their birth are now finding their way onto the endangered species list. 

 Irresponsible logging practices and dams are among the salmon's main habitat 

 problems. Several Pacific salmon have already been listed, and other endangered 

 species petitions are in the works for both Pacific and Atlantic salmons. The days 

 when salmon were so abundant that farmers caught them with pitchforks for use 

 as fertilizer, are long gone. Over a hundred major runs of salmon and steelhead 

 on the West Coast south of Canada have already been lost, primarily due to 

 habitat problems. Thousands of salmon fishermen in both oceans have been 

 idled. Efforts to conserve and restore fish will ultimately fail unless the habitats 

 that produce them are conserved or, in many cases, restored. 



Fish as Renewable Resources 



America's ultimate source of economic power is our natural resources. 

 Marine fishes, in addition to their enormous biological value, represent a 

 significant part of the resource endowment of the United States, and the world. 

 One fifth of the world's catch comes from our State and Federal waters. The 

 National Marine Fisheries Service calculated the 1991 value of the commercial 

 catch at roughly $4 billion and the total economic impact of commercial fisheries 

 at $50 billion. An additional $69 billion in total economic impact from 

 recreational fisheries was calculated by the Sport Fishing Institute in a report 

 released in 1994, based on statistics from the U. S. Census Bureau and Fish and 

 Wildlife Service. By depleting fishes and allowing ruination of their habitats, we 



