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the Marine Mammal Protection Act for a period of three years to 

 allow the take of marine mammals incidental to certain commercial 

 fisheries while gathering information needed to make the required 

 determinations. In response, the Marine Mammal Protection Act 

 was amended in 1988 to exempt most U.S. commercial fisheries from 

 the general permit and "small take'-' provisions of the Act for a 

 period of five years. The period of the exemption was increased 

 from three to five years to provide more time to gather and 

 evaluate necessary information. 



The 1988 amendments directed that the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service classify all U.S. fisheries according to the 

 frequency that they take marine mammals. They required that 

 owners of vessels engaged in fisheries that tcike marine mammals 

 more than rarely must register with the Service and obtain an 

 exemption certificate. They also required that vessel owners 

 report incidental taking and provide such other information as 

 determined necessary by the National Marine Fisheries Service to 

 reliably determine the nature and extent of the incidental take. 

 In addition, the amendments required that the Service develop an 

 observer program to verify the reliability of the data reported 

 by fishermen. 



As a first step towards determining the regime that should 

 be used to govern marine mammal-fisheries interactions after the 

 five-year interim exemption expires, the Marine Mammal Commission 

 was directed to develop and make available to the Secretary and 

 to the public recommended guidelines. The amendments specified 

 that the guidelines: 



" (A) be designed to provide a scientific rationale and 

 basis for determining how many marine mammals may 

 be incidentally taken under a regime to be adopted 

 to govern such taking after October 1, 1993; 



" (B) be based on sound principles of wildlife 

 management, and be consistent with and in 

 furtherance of the purposes and policies set forth 

 in this Act; and 



"(C) to the maximum extent practicable, include as 

 factors to be considered and utilized in 

 determining permissible levels of such taking — 



(i) the status and trends of the 



affected marine mammal population 

 stocks; 



(ii) the abundance and annual net 

 recruitment of such stocks; 



