Likewise, there appears to be no requirement and no means pro- 

 vided in the legislation to obtain effort, location and other data 

 from vessels engaged in fisheries for which they are not required to 

 register. 



Also, there appears to be no explicit requirement to monitor the 

 size or vital rates of any of the potentially affected marine 

 mammal stocks, including those which are determined to be criti- 

 cal. 



Consequently, it is questionable whether the proposed legislation 

 would ensure in the long run that incidental taking in commercial 

 fisheries does not cause any marine mammal species or population 

 stock to be reduced below its optimum sustainable population level. 



The proposed legislation specifies the criteria to be used to esti- 

 mate the potential biological removal level, the PBR, for stocks 

 that are depleted and for stocks of unknown or uncertain status. 

 The criteria, in our view, are appropriately conservative and, if 

 adopted, will provide reasonable certainty that taking kept at or 

 below the estimated PBR level would not cause the affected stocks 

 to be reduced or to be maintained below their maximum net pro- 

 ductivity level. 



However, the proposed legislation does not specify the criteria 

 that should be used to calculate the Potential Biological Removal 

 level for stocks determined to be within their optimum sustainable 

 population range. Likewise, it does not specify the procedure that 

 would be used to determine whether a stock is within its Optimum 

 Sustainable Population range. 



At present, the Marine Mammal Protection Act requires that 

 OSP determinations be made through formal rulemaking. In cases 

 where stocks are determined to be within their OSP range, it au- 

 thorizes take levels which could be much higher than could be au- 

 thorized using the proposed criteria for establishing PBR levels for 

 stocks of unknown or uncertain status. 



Thus, continuation of the present system for making OSP deter- 

 minations and determining levels of take that could be authorized 

 from stocks within their OSP ranges would provide an incentive for 

 obtaining the information necessary to determine whether a stock 

 of unknown or uncertain status is actually within its OSP range. 



To make this incentive clear, the Commission believes it would 

 be desirable to specify in the legislation that the PBR level for 

 stocks determined to be within their optimum sustainable popula- 

 tion range is the level that can be sustained without causing the 

 stock to be reduced below its maximum net productivity level. 



The Commission also believes that it would be desirable and ap- 

 propriate to specify that stocks will be assumed to be below their 

 MNP level and that the PBR level will be calculated accordingly 

 until a formal determination is made that a stock is within its Op- 

 timal Sustainable Population range. 



The proposed legislation would establish eight regional conserva- 

 tion teams. The regional approach makes sense in that a number of 

 affected marine mammal stocks are taken incidentally in more 

 than one fishery and the fisheries are generally managed on a re- 

 gional basis. However, it is not clear how the regional teams would 

 deal with situations when the affected stocks migrate between, or 

 have ranges which include, two or more regions. 



