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kind of thing. And we would have observer coverage on these fish- 

 eries, provided we had the funding. 



So that is where the attention would be, because that is where 

 the primary problem is. 



Senator Kerry, And how do you see that as differing from the 

 industry/environmental proposal, where they would concentrate on 

 the particular stocks within those fisheries? 



Dr. Foster. I think that is different, because you could be a fish- 

 erman, again, who interacted with several different alpha stocks. 

 Let us say you interacted with several different stocks in trouble. 

 So, you could have different management requirements for each of 

 those stocks. 



Senator Kerry. But it is my understanding that the industry 

 conservation proposal focuses on the state of each individual fish 

 stock, and the marine mammal population. 



Dr. Foster. And so does ours. 



Senator Kerry. Correct. But yours is more concerned with the 

 fishing frequency of interaction, while theirs is more concerned 

 with the state of the stock. 



Dr. Foster. No. 



Senator Kerry. That is not fair? 



Dr. Eagle. The National Marine Fisheries Service proposal does 

 one thing that is very similar to theirs. We classify stocks, and the 

 industry proposal also classifies stocks. And in the classification 

 scheme, we use total removal, that is, from all sources. 



The Fisheries' proposal is slightly more conservative in some of 

 the parameters that are used in calculating these. The PBR that 

 we calculate is a fundamental part of our definition of alpha stocks, 

 or the stocks of concern. And that is calculated on a minimum esti- 

 mate of abundance. It is purposely conservative, using usually a 

 default population growth. 



The industry conservation g^oup classification scheme would use 

 the same population growth rates, but apply it to a point estimate, 

 or a mean estimate, of the population size. Therefore, the agency 

 is slightly more conservative in protecting marine mammals. The 

 agency also looks at the fisheries, and you know, classifies fisheries 

 to denote the major hotspots. The idea that we approached was 

 that we are looking at the reauthorization, or something to replace 

 section 114, which dealt with fisheries. So, we sought to focus a lot 

 of our effort on those fisheries that are causing the most problems 

 with marine mammals. 



Senator Kerry. Well now, again, to do that you have to have 

 some fairly decent data input; do you not? 



Dr. Eagle. Yes, you do. 



Senator Kerry. And the theory of the moratorium in the last 5 

 years was that we were going to use it to gather data. But there 

 are some serious questions about the degree to which adequate 

 data has been gathered, on which either plan is based. Is that a 

 fair statement? 



Dr. Eagle. That is a fair statement, from what we have pro- 

 duced so far. Some of the estimates, particularly in Alaska, you 

 know, you take the populations we have there, particularly the 

 ones that are a statewide distribution: It takes us 3 years to survey 



