62 



a stable one, and has excellent potential for growth — no pun in- 

 tended there either. 



I participated in negotiations between fisheries groups and envi- 

 ronmental organizations in an effort to provide Congress with an 

 alternative to the NMFS-proposed regime to govern the inter- 

 actions between our industry and marine mammals afler Septem- 

 ber 30. All of the fishing groups that I represent and work with 

 want to be part of a process that ensures both the viability of ma- 

 rine mammal stocks and fisheries in our region. 



The Maine Sardine Council's interest was to work toward the de- 

 velopment of a program that would not threaten to shut down our 

 category III herring fishery due to any impacts that New England's 

 sink gillnet fleet might be having on the region's harbor porpoise 

 population. 



The NMFS-proposed regime would have made it possible for any 

 fishery interacting with a marine mammal stock of concern, like 

 the harbor porpoise, to be shut down once a particular potential bi- 

 ological removal level of take was reached. The possibility that 

 Maine's herring fishery, recognized by the interim exemption pro- 

 gram as offering not more than a remote likelihood of taking any 

 marine mammal, might be shut down due to problems associated 

 with another gear type just did not make sense to us. 



The Maine Sardine Council has signed on the negotiated pro- 

 posal, which I will call the critical stock regime, because we believe 

 that this possibility has been eliminated. 



Even though our fishery could be a focus of a conservation team 

 which may be established to consider the viability of the east coast 

 harbor porpoise population, we are confident that our fishery will 

 be recognized as already operating at an insignificant level of inci- 

 dental mortality and serious injury rate of those animals. 



The Associated Fisheries of Maine also supports the negotiated 

 critical stock regime because of the fact that its two member asso- 

 ciations most likely to be impacted by changes to the MMPA this 

 year, the Sardine Council and the Maine Gillnetters Association, 

 have agreed to do so. 



While I do not directly represent the Maine Gillnetters Associa- 

 tion, I worked closely with that organization during the negotiation 

 process. At the close of the discussions, the Maine Gillnetters Asso- 

 ciation did, too, agree to support the critical stock regime. 



In my view, they took this position primarily because the con- 

 servation team concept represents a partnership between Govern- 

 ment and industry, which is intended to develop strategies to miti- 

 gate takes while allowing for the continued viability of a fishery. 

 A partnership like this has not existed during most of the interim 

 exemption program. 



It was not until very recently that NMFS began to pursue a pol- 

 icy of working with the gillnet industry to help to develop alter- 

 natives which would reduce the fisheiVs impact on harbor por- 

 poise. During most of the past 5 years, the response to being asked 

 to do so was countered by the assertion that Congress had only 

 given the agency the authority to count animals and fishery inter- 

 actions, inferring that it was the sole responsibility of industry to 

 develop alternative fishing strategies. 



