123 



- 7 - 



The Proposed Regime appears inconsistent with respect to 

 its relationship to public display and scientific research. 

 In places it appears to say that public display and 

 scientific research are not part of the Proposed Regime: 

 "[t]his proposal addresses only those removals directly 

 associated with commercial fishing activities" (Proposed 

 Regime 67). 10 Elsewhere, however, it indicates that public 

 display and scientific research are part of the Proposed 

 Regime, namely, part of the allocation of the number of 

 animals that the agency calculates pursuant to the PBR. ( See 

 Proposed Regime 62-63.) In addition, the related Final 

 Legislative Environmental Impact Statement states that public 

 display and scientific research will be subject to the PBR 

 allocation process." It bears note that the Conservation 

 and Fishing Community Negotiated Proposal for a Marine Mammal 

 Research and Conservation Program (at 3) indicates that the 



10 See also id. at 20: 



"While NOAA believes that removals of marine mammals 

 from all sources are controllable to some extent (i.e. 

 removals resulting from subsistence users, tribal 

 rights, recreational fishing, tanker traffic, public 

 display, scientific research, pollution, commercial 

 fishing and other causes of marine mammal takes) , NOAA 

 addresses only those removals that are directly 

 associated with commercial fishing activities in this 

 proposal. Removals that are a result of activities 

 other than commercial fishing will be addressed when 

 NOAA implements the new amendments to the MMPA." 



11 "Because the scope of the proposal reflects NOAA's 

 belief that sound principles of wildlife management 

 require that all human interactions be considered to 

 ensure that marine mammals are not being disadvantaged, 

 the total PBR of a stock would then be allocated among 

 user groups (e.g., subsistence, public display, 

 scientific research, and fishing)." 



FLEIS at 7. See also id. at 20 ("This alternative also 

 establishes an allocation scheme for distributing a PBR among 

 fishery and non-fishery user groups") . 



