126 



- 10 



It is critical that the special regime for public 

 display and scientific research not become entangled with the 

 regime for commercial fishing operations. We look forward to 

 working with Congress to help assure that this important goal 

 is achieved. 



The Center for Whale Research in its comments states 

 that 



"we disagree with the concept of introducing a NOAA 

 determined total allowable removal (ABR) level governing 

 removals incidental to commercial fisheries and other 

 activities (eg: public display and research) to allocate 

 annually among user groups. In practice this would mask 

 the lethal removals in commercial fishing with nonlethal 

 'takes' by harassment, research and public display." 



The Center concludes that the regime should focus on 

 commercial fisheries "and not obfuscate the issue by 

 allocation, permit process and accounting for non-fishing 

 takes by other users [e.g. research and public display]." 



