26 



the whole State, and do an adequate job. We do one section per 

 year. 



We started our population assessments in 1991, fiscal year 1991, 

 so we are just coming to end of this 3-year segment on that. These 

 data will be available to us in, you know, late this year, early next 

 year. 



Senator Kerry. Is it unfair to ask why it began in 1991, if the 

 effort was designated in 1988? 



Dr. Foster. Well, to do population assessments, we actually did 

 not get funding until 1991. So, we began in earnest at that time. 

 Before that time, we were doing what we always had done, using 

 the existing funding. But this required a much larger effort, and 

 we did not get the funding until later. 



Senator Kerry. Can you share with us where we have adequate 

 data, at this point? And where we do not? 



Dr. Foster. Tom can certainly speak to this in more detail, but 

 I think we have adequate information now for minimal population 

 estimates, for all of the stocks for which we are responsible, which 

 is about 60. But out of that 60, we only have OSP calculations for 

 4. So, where we are looking for information is in trends. 



Senator Kerry. Right. Which four do we have the OSP's on? 



Dr. Eagle. It is Northern Fur Seals; no, I am sorry, not North- 

 ern Fur Seals. It is Northern Elephant Seals, the Harbor Porpoise 

 in California. I have to look these up. Dahl's Porpoise, and the 

 Gray Whale. 



Senator Kerry. Would you say that the two proposals that we 

 have currently address the gaps in information at this point? 



Dr. Eagle. I think the NMFS proposal addresses the data gaps 

 in the long term, looking at the Marine Mammal Protection Act's 

 idea of or goal of maintaining populations within their optimal sus- 

 tainable population. That is a long-term monitoring effort. And the 

 negotiated proposal does not contain provisions for a long-term 

 monitoring program. It is focusing year to year on the stocks of 

 concern. 



And there is merit to that idea. We are just fighting the prob- 

 lems that we have. The opposite side of that is we do not get a han- 

 dle — we do not move ahead of the game. We do not try to see where 

 we are in the noncritical stocks. 



Senator Kerry. Now, it would seem to me from experience, and 

 I will make this my last question before I cede to my colleague, but 

 it strikes me based on what I have learned about how the informa- 

 tion has been gathered that the log book process has proven wholly 

 inadequate, and that the only data source on which you could rea- 

 sonably rely would the independent monitoring data which was im- 

 mediately processed and recorded. 



Again, would you comment on that or respond? 



Dr. Foster. I think perhaps it may be too strong a statement to 

 say they were totally useless. I mean, certainly if you are looking 

 for take information you need observer coverage. But we got a lot 

 of information out of the log books just about fishing practices, 

 where people are fishing, you know, fishing effort, this kind of in- 

 formation. 



