31 



happened somewhere else that moved them in? An old habitat has 

 changed? 



Mr. Thornburgh. No. ma'am, I do not. I think that the popula- 

 tions have alv^ays been large there. In my written testimony, I 

 submit evidence that the Indians used to deliberately herd and kill 

 the seals to protect the salmon runs prior to our influence on the 

 runs in the river so they have always been there. They are just 

 heavily protected now, and there are no natural predators or no in- 

 digenous people as predators to keep those animals in control. 

 They are growing at 10 or 12 percent per year which means they 

 double about every decade. So with no change in the rate of 

 growth, you can anticipate twice as many around 10 years from 

 now as you are experiencing today. 



Ms. FuRSE. And to follow up, because of the heavily depleted 

 salmon runs in our Columbia River system, are you then more 

 aware of the effect on the fishery? In other words, if we were to 

 solve the habitat problem for the salmon and increase the runs, 

 could your fisheries survive with that historical population? 

 Mr. Thornburgh. Of salmon? Yes, ma'am. 

 Ms. FuRSE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 Mr. Studds. The gentleman from New Jersey. 

 Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to address a 

 question first to Mr. Gutting, and then anyone else who may want 

 to respond to it certainly is welcome to. It seems that throughout 

 your testimony, at least from what I have been able to read and 

 from what little I have heard here— I am sorry for being late— that 

 one of the primary problems here has to do with good information 

 about kills, what the situation really and accurately is, and I un- 

 derstand that there is going to be a proposal set forth by the fisher- 

 men together with the environmental community which you have 

 discussed at some length. But just for the record, could you tell us 

 what the main components of that proposal— what you think it 

 might be? 



Mr. Gutting. I am sure if I misspeak that there are experts at 

 the table who will correct me. Our group sincerely believes that all 

 of our efforts— government, industry, the environmental communi- 

 ty — ought to be focused on hot spots— real problems, that we 

 shouldn't just mindlessly collect information, put it in computers, 

 and have them spit out statistical reports. We need to identify hot 

 spots, and that is a key element of agreement. 



I think there is another key element of agreement, and that is 

 once we identify these hot spots, rather than having formal rule- 

 making where you submit your comments and you never know 

 whether anybody even reads it or testified to some agency person 

 at length and he just sits there and looks at you and you don t 

 know whether he is hearing you, rather than that kind of thing, 

 which we have had for five years, we ought to form mitigation 

 teams or groups— you call them whatever you want— and be sure 

 that on that group, that team, are all the experts— people from the 

 industry, from the government, people from the scientific commu- 

 nity, and problem solve— develop a plan to solve a particular prob- 

 lem; get the right people involved; have that interaction, and then 

 come back to the government and say, "Here is our solution to this 

 hot spot." 



