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system to deal with marine mammal fisheries confiicts. We cannot 

 let the interim exemption expire without some framework to re- 

 place it because many fisheries including some of those in New 

 England would be unable to obtain incidental take permits and 

 would be forced to close. In addition, we should not extend the in- 

 terim exemption because of the limited protection for marine 

 mammal populations contained within its regulations. 



The NMFS proposal maintains the main goals of the Marine 

 Mammal Protection Act and for the most part provides practical 

 means of obtaining these aims. The zero mortality goal is a particu- 

 larly important objective that drives management to reduce inci- 

 dental mortality in all fisheries. In some cases, such as the entan- 

 glement of porpoises in gill nets, it is unlikely that we will soon 

 achieve this goal, but it is certainly worth striving for. 



The NMFS proposal will also keep the objective of maintaining 

 stocks within their Optimum Sustainable Population or OSP range. 

 For many stocks, however, it is unlikely that we will be able to 

 make OSP determinations in the foreseeable future. The alterna- 

 tive mechanism contained within the proposal, the PBR process, 

 allows for a conservative level of removals for stocks for which it is 

 not possible to make OSP determination. This conservative ap- 

 proach is necessary because of the considerable scientific uncertain- 

 ty regarding the status of most marine mammal populations. 



The NMFS proposal will require continued monitoring of fisher- 

 ies to document incidental take levels, and I would like to note sev- 

 eral important issues here. First, NMFS should be allowed to place 

 observers on board all vessels except those which safety factors pre- 

 clude such monitoring. Without this authority, it is possible that 

 vessels with high mammal bycatches will not be sampled in volun- 

 tary observer programs. 



Second, we need to develop real time data collection systems to 

 improve the speed with which bycatch information can be made 

 available to managers and to the fishing industry. Third, unless 

 significant changes are made to the logbook system so that partici- 

 pants benefit from the collection of accurate and timely data, this 

 portion of the program should be discontinued. 



Finally, it is critical that NMFS maintain a flexible attitude 

 toward enforcing quotas should they be necessary. In complex situ- 

 ations such as the Gulf of Maine where participation in the gill net 

 fishery is seasonal and varies with region, the simple application of 

 universal quotas will not work. 



In closing, I would like to mention the harbor porpoise working 

 group of which I have been a member since 1990. The group is a 

 coalition of organizations representing the fishing industry, envi- 

 ronmental groups, scientific institutions, and government. Our pri- 

 mary goal is to find ways of reducing the incidental take of por- 

 poises in gill nets, of minimizing impacts to the fishery. The group 

 is informal and at times raucous, but by agreeing to this common 

 goal, we have made considerable progress. 



In this reauthorization debate, your task is much the same as 

 ours — to reduce the incidental take of marine mammals while 

 minimizing impacts on the fishing industry. I believe that a strong 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act incorporating the major elements 



