27 



bit more about your observations on the cumulative impacts of 

 habitat degradation on marine mammals. As you know, in our own 

 State we are dealing with this issue right now as we look at how 

 to monitor the potential cumulative effects of disposal of dredge 

 materials and discharge of sewage effluent into what are very vital 

 feeding grounds for endangered whales. You seem to indicate that 

 we should go beyond the normal pollution issues and perhaps even 

 beyond our new program which we are going to call swim-with-the- 

 lawyers, I think. What should we be thinking about here? 



Dr. Tyack. I do think it demands a new way of thinking. Most 

 of the enforcement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act has ex- 

 clusively concerned individual takes of animals. There has been re- 

 markably little thought put toward the combined effects of all 

 human activities on these animals. And that is going to take a re- 

 orientation of effort. 



Unfortunately, for chemical and noise pollution, we have such 

 profound ignorance, I don't think that it is possible to make good 

 regulatory decisions. The Office of Naval Resource has launched an 

 ambitious new program to look at the impact of noise on these ani- 

 mals. That has not received much public attention but is one of po- 

 tential concern. 



Chemical pollution requires an equally concerted effort on the 

 part of some Federal agency to bring us answers so that it will be 

 possible to make cost and benefit decisions. Right now we simply 

 can't say what the impacts to marine mammals are of these heavy 

 toxic loads that Mr. Pungowiyi just talked about. 



I think that there are, however, several different issues that are 

 much more obvious. The constant threat of vessel collision is obvi- 

 ously dangerous to animals, and the primary need here is simply 

 enforcement of existing laws. For right whales in the southern Gulf 

 of Maine, one of the primary issues to their survival, one of the pri- 

 mary habitat degradation issues, is this presence of vessels which 

 collide with them and kill so many individuals. This problem has 

 not been addressed by the National Marine Fisheries Service. 



Just as important as vessel collision, are the potential effects of 

 overfishing of marine mammal prey in reducing the carrying capac- 

 ity of the habitat. I think protection against this kind of risk would 

 require allocating quotas of food for marine mammals when fishing 

 quotas are allocated. This will not be an easy task. But I think that 

 if Congress is serious about enhancing the recovery of marine 

 mammals, it would do better to decrease the effort on trying to reg- 

 ulate every individual take of an animal, even if it is trivial, and 

 pay much more attention to targeting the most serious problems 

 facing each marine mammal population. For each particular popu- 

 lation I don't think that it is an impossible task even now to assess 

 which of the following problems are of primary concern: chemical 

 pollution, overfishing, entanglement in fishing gear, vessel colli- 

 sion, or noise pollution. What is required is a process that demands 

 weighing all these impacts. 



Mr. Studds. I don't suppose I should ask you about the impact 

 of an eighteen and a half foot vessel commanded by a member of 

 this Committee, so I won't. Thank you very much. I hope the air- 

 port reopens sometime this fiscal year. The gentleman from New 

 Jersey. 



