24 



Mr. James. My understanding is that they signed at the same 

 time that all of the other attorneys signed for their clients. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. ok. We will get confirmation. 



I am going to try to just get us back on schedule and I believe 

 that the gentlewoman from Oregon has been here the longest in 

 the room for this. So go ahead. 



Ms. FURSE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 



A couple of questions, and one I might want to take you up on 

 the offer of Rollie, perhaps, to answer one of the questions. 



What are the consequences — and I would like everybody on the 

 panel who wants to respond to respond — what are the con- 

 sequences to Northwest salmon runs if the status quo were to con- 

 tinue indefinitely with no new harvest regimes? Can you respond 

 to that, and perhaps Rollie could respond on the Oregon situation. 



Mr. Turner. First, I must caution everyone to recognize that 

 1994 in the Northwest is a rather unusual year, we hope, because 

 of the compounding of several natural conditions that, given the 

 law of averages, we would expect not to occur in succession. El 

 Nino and the drought conditions are compounding the other prob- 

 lems that we have. Given the law of averages, one would think 

 those things, which happen periodically, would not overlap quite as 

 they have in 1994. 



So if we saw a status quo in the Pacific salmon interceptions, we 

 still might see a rebound in the number of fish returning, which 

 is not to mask our other problems and challenges with habitat res- 

 toration and the like. 



However, it will continue to cause the South, in particular, not 

 to reap the benefits of whatever actions it takes. We have, as was 

 illustrated in 1994, a very strong conservation ethic that closes our 

 fisheries, frankly, in response to the fact that Canada is catching 

 high levels of fish off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. We tried 

 first to put the fish on the spawning grounds and we take pretty 

 dramatic efforts in the South to do that. Therefore, the benefits of 

 our actions are accruing to fisheries in the North, not to our own 

 fishers, and that would continue to occur and be extremely frus- 

 trating. 



We want to move the fishing regimes coast-wide, and I believe 

 Canada shares this vision, of moving these regimes so that they 

 are what we call "abundance-based management," so that they go 

 up and down with abundance rather than fixed ceilings. 



Ms. FURSE. Mr. James, do you have any comment on that? 



Mr. James. Yes. I think that, as we pointed out in the paper that 

 we put together, for the sake of the salmon, without some major 

 effort in stopping what we have been doing to this resource, we are 

 at a level where we are at the mercy of ocean survival. And if it 

 is good to us, we get a little more back; if it is bad to us, the result 

 is compounded by the condition of the habitat. So it is something 

 that has to be addressed specifically. 



Similar to what has come out of the timber plan, we need to 

 know how much fish are going to come out of that plan so every- 

 body can be held accountable to produce. I think that will help us; 

 it will clarify for everybody else that we deal with, this is what we 

 are intending to do, and this is how we are going to do it. So I 

 think that is, you know, my opinion on that. 



