24 



system as being a major problem. Well, it certainly got our atten- 

 tion, and we began to investigate. How could this possibly have 

 happened? 



One of the problems we believe is the definition of fishery. The 

 system the government has come up with depends upon identifying 

 fisheries. What they have done on the Atlantic Coast is they have 

 lumped a whole series of fisheries together — the tuna fishery, man- 

 aged separately from the swordfish fishery, managed separately 

 from the shark fishery. These are fisheries in different parts of the 

 ocean. Some of our vessels fish off the Azores, South America, in 

 the Gulf of Mexico, off of New England— in vastly different areas. 

 They use different gear. Some of the gear is set underwater and is 

 fixed to the bottom. Some floats on the surface. Sometimes you fish 

 during the day. Sometimes you fish during the night. You use dif- 

 ferent baits. They have lumped all of these people together in one 

 fishery, and they said that this is a problem fishery. And yet if you 

 look at the West Coast when they define fisheries, it is much more 

 precisely. It is particular gear on a particular area. Now, obviously, 

 if you lump everybody together in one big fishery, the numbers 

 begin to look bad. 



But that is not the only problem with this proposal. We went and 

 looked at the data that suggested that we were killing large num- 

 bers of mammals, and there were some bizarre things in that data 

 base. The government was saying that we were killing Steller sea 

 lions and California sea lions. These are animals that are found in 

 the Pacific. The numbers just didn't square, Mr. Chairman. They 

 said there were 820 vessels. That doesn't square with our knowl- 

 edge of this fleet. We think that this data, which has been present- 

 ed by the interim program, needs to be verified. 



We consulted with the scientists. Fortunately, this fleet has a 

 long history of observer coverage. Government people have been 

 aboard our vessels over the years, and we checked with the scien- 

 tists who had been on board. Their observations are summarized in 

 my testimony, and they square with our experience. It would typi- 

 cally take several years before one of our vessels would kill a single 

 marine mammal. So something appears to be wrong with the infor- 

 mation that is coming out of this interim program. 



Now, that is not to say that something shouldn't be done about 

 our fishery and about our fleet. There may be a problem, but this 

 interim program is not getting at it. We need to be able to sit down 

 with the government scientists and look at their information. We 

 are willing to share our experience and find out whether, in fact, 

 we are a real problem. But if we continue to generate reams of 

 paper and do nothing else, we are off the mark. Thank you, Mr. 

 Chairman. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Gutting may be found at the end 

 of the hearing.] 



Mr. Studds. Thank you, sir. We have requested some of the in- 

 formation to which you allude from NMFS, and we don't want that 

 to be incorrect information. Are you listening? I think they heard 

 you. Obviously, all these problems originated in the preceding Ad- 

 ministration and will rapidly be resolved. 



Mr. Gutting. Yes, sir. 



