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Committee. In November, Congress passed the MMPA Amendments of 1988 establishing an 

 information gathering program and an Interim Exemption Program for Commercial Fisheries. 



IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 1988 AMENDMENTS TO THE MMPA 



The 1988 amendments to the MMPA included in Section 114 a five-year program 

 exempting commercial fisheries from the incidental taking prohibitions of the Act This 

 limited exemption allows incidental takes of marine mammals in fishing gear ranging from 

 coastal gillnets in New England to massive trawls in the Bering Sea— interactions between 38 

 different fisheries and 40 species of marine mammals (except those in the eastern tropical 

 Pacific yellowfin tuna purse seine fishery and California sea otters). The exemption was 

 designed to aUow commercial fishing to continue while the National Marine Fisheries Service 

 (NMFS) stepped up its data gathering, observations, and research on marine mammal/fishing 

 interactions. The objective of the Interim Exemption Program was to provide time to collect 

 reliable information about marine mammal and commercial fishing interactions and to 

 complete conservation and recovery plans, while at the same time allowing commercial 

 fishing operations to continue. In return for the temporary exemption from incidental take 

 regulations, the commercial fishing industry was to participate in the data-gathering program 

 by carrying mandatory on-board observers, compiling log books, and reporting marine 

 mammal interactions. 



