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SPECIFIC PROPOSALS 



1. The MM PA should be amended to place primary responsibility with the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for the care and maintenance of marine mammals in 

 captivity. 



This issue is central to this re-authorization process. It is vital that primary oversight of 

 marine mammals in captivity rests with NMFS. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection 

 Service (APHIS) and NMFS currently share responsibility for oversight of the care and 

 maintenance of captive marine mammals, with APHIS largely responsible for the 

 conditions under which they are held. However, APHIS has been persistently reluctant 

 to modify certain requirements (such as minimum social group size) for marine 

 mammals because such requirements could then apply to all captive animal species. 

 Such conflicts emphasize why it is inappropriate for APHIS, which has little expertise 

 with marine mammals and an overly broad mandate, to have primary oversight of captive 

 marine mammals, which have very specialized, species-specific requirements. 



In addition, APHIS has demonstrated consistently in the past that it cannot adequately 

 ensure the humane treatment of captive marine mammals. Several facilities, a notable 

 recent example being the Cape Cod Aquarium in Massachusetts, have been repeatedly 

 certified and licensed under APHIS when conditions were clearly inadequate. The Cape 

 Cod facility was finally shut down, but only when NMFS found it to be "unsatisfactory 

 and inoperable". Clearly NMFS has the expertise to establish adequate standards for all 

 species of marine mammals held in captivity, as demonstrated in its recently published 

 proposed regulations to govern special exception permits, and should have primary 

 responsibility for these animals. 



Most importantly, however, the MMPA clearly grants NMFS statutory authority over all 

 marine mammals, regardless of the environment they inhabit. As NMFS has maintained, 

 in its proposed regulations and in a recent lawsuit brought against NMFS by the Mirage 

 Hotel in Las Vegas, captivity is a form of "take". It results in animals being placed in 

 surroundings completely alien to their natural environment and being maintained in 

 these artificial surroundings on a continuing basis. NMFS should therefore have 

 jurisdiction over those on-going takes. Under no circumstances should APHIS, an 

 agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, be given primary authority over any 

 animals protected by the MMPA. 



2. The MMPA should be amended to prohibit the capture from the wild of marine 

 mammals for public display, as well as their import and export 



The public display industry has been extolling the successes of its captive breeding 

 programs for marine mammals. Indeed, most pinnipeds currently in captivity were 



