28 



I think you need to look at ecosystem interactions before you 

 point the finger and say, "Well, these guys are the problem," be- 

 cause you can't eliminate the problem as long as the resource is 

 still there. Something else will exploit it. 



Mr. Hamburg. OK. Well, I think that does define two very differ- 

 ent approaches to this problem. Let me just go into my second 

 issue, which is the sea otter. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is 

 now considering allowing the range of the sea otter to expand 

 northward into areas that are currently being utilized by the com- 

 mercial sea urchin industry, and the rationale for allowing the sea 

 otter to expand northward is that in the event of a tanker spill off 

 the coast of California, unless the sea otter population is spread out 

 along the coast, there could be a serious dent in that population 

 and may be some threat to the population. It seems to me that 

 maybe we should look at the safety of the tankers to minimize 

 much further the possibility of that accident rather than allowing 

 the sea otter population to spread to geographic areas that are pos- 

 sibly not even within their original range, but allowing them to do 

 so is a tremendous problem to a pretty important ' industry, you 

 know, along the coast of my district. Are any of you familiar with 

 this problem of the sea otter expanding its range northward in the 

 USFW plan? 



Ms. luDiCELLO. I am not intimately familiar with the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service plan, but I would like to take a crack at your 

 notion of the tanker lanes. Looking at marine mammals, as Sharon 

 said, as the place where you control activity, lead us away often- 

 times from the real source of the problem. In looking at the desig- 

 nation of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary, for example, sea otters in 

 tanker lanes were a hot issue, and we found that even though it 

 could be shown and demonstrated that the major potential threat 

 to sea otters in that area was the tanker traffic, there was just tre- 

 mendous reluctance on the part of agencies who have authority to 

 move such things to take any action. 



We argued then and would argue now that the Endangered Spe- 

 cies Act does give both NOAA and the Coast Guard and the Fish 

 and Wildlife Service Authority to proceed with whatever negotia- 

 tions they need to undertake with other countries to move those 

 tanker lanes in a way that they don't pose this threat that looms 

 over all other activity including the activity of the otters and the 

 fishermen and everyone else. 



Mr. Hamburg. Anyone else want to comment on sea otters? 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Studds. It is unusual. The sea otters just go where you tell 

 them to go and don't go where you don't want them to go. 



Mr. Hamburg. Well, apparently, they have been managed in a 

 certain area around Saint Nicholas Island off the coast, and the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service has a plan to move them northward into 

 a range of the urchin industry. 



Mr. Studds. By van or how do you plan to 



Mr. Hamburg. Well, I think 



Mr. Studds. It is a most amazing thing. 



Mr. Hamburg. I think what they are doing now is they are re- 

 stricting them to a certain area, and, you know, there is a lot of 

 debate about what is the natural area of the California sea otter, 



