72 



When a few individual animals from large healthy pinniped stocks 

 are causing serious depletion of fish resources, management 

 agencies should be allowed to use whatever means are necessary to 

 alleviate the problem. Failure to respond in such circumstances 

 is totally contrary to sound practices of wildlife management. 

 Language should be added to the draft bill to require the 

 Secretary to take actions that may be necessary to implement 

 recommendations that are made by the pinniped interaction task 

 force . 



4. Authorization t n Take Marine Mammals 



We also recommend a revision to the draft bill with respect to 

 vessel registration. The draft legislation authorizes the 

 Secretary to register each vessel in a fishery that may take 

 marine mammals that are endangered, threatened or critical, and 

 requires that they display a decal showing registration is 

 current. Such an approach was attempted by the NMFS during the 5- 

 year interim exemption period, with mixed results. The program 

 was duplicative, needlessly bureaucratic and extremely costly. 

 After this experience, the State is convinced that vessel 

 registration should be at the regional level, as an overall part 

 of the fishery management regime. 



On the west coast, the State of Alaska and other states already 

 have comprehensive systems to track and record fishing effort in 

 the state-regulated fisheries. The Federal government has a 



