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levels, " mechanisms have been provided to allow fisheries some 

 take of marine mammals. 



During the 1988 MMPA reauthorization Congress recognized the 

 complexity of this issue, and instituted the "interim exemption" 

 to provide time for gathering additional data and developing the 

 details of a management regime. Unfortunately, the programs that 

 were developed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to 

 measure the level of incidental take and assess status of marine 

 mammal stocks were not adequately focused. After 5 years, and 

 approximately $30 million, we are still in a situation where 

 questions basic to proper management remain unanswered because in 

 most cases the information that resulted is incomplete and of 

 uncertain reliability. 



Among other things, the interim exemption to the MMPA required the 

 Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Marine Mammal 

 Commission, to develop and transmit to Congress proposed 

 guidelines to govern the incidental taking of marine mammals in 

 the course off commercial fishing operations. The proposed regime 

 recommended by NMFS was described in a legislative proposal sent 

 to Congress in November 1992. In spite of the serious lack of 

 data on marine mammal populations and how they are affected by 

 fisheries, the NMFS proposed a detailed and comprehensive system 

 for regulating marine mammal-fisheries interactions. The system 

 they described is unduly complex, fails to focus efforts on true 

 problem areas, and would be extremely expensive to operate. 



