13 



As the Commission understands it, under the joint industry/envi- 

 ronmental community proposal, fishermen would be authorized to 

 take marine mammals not listed as endangered or threatened 

 under the Endangered Species Act without restriction provided 

 that they report any lethal taking. This is in part the issue that 

 Dr. Foster referred to as the burden question. 



Restricting take would require that an affected stock be des- 

 ignated a critical stock, that a conservation team be established 

 and agree that taking must be restricted to prevent the stock from 

 becoming endangered or threatened, and that the conservation 

 team recommends and the National Marine Fisheries Service then 

 promulgates regulations to restrict take. 



On a related matter, the industry/environmental community pro- 

 posal apparently assumes that there will be no need, and it makes 

 no explicit provision, for allocating the allowable take among var- 

 ious fisheries and other possible user groups. 



Finally, under the joint industry/environmental community pro- 

 posal, the National Marine Fisheries Service would be given discre- 

 tionary authority but would not actually be required to develop and 

 implement an observer program or a program for assessing and 

 monitoring the status of the affected marine mammal stocks. 



In general, the Commission believes that the regime proposed by 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service would be more workable and 

 actually cheaper to implement than the alternative regime pro- 

 posed by the fishing industry and environmental groups. However, 

 the Commission also believes that the service's proposal could be 

 strengthened by incorporating several of the elements from the 

 fishing industry/environmental community proposal. 



The Commission believes, for example, that it would be useful to 

 constitute regional groups along the lines of the conservation teams 

 described in the industry/environmental community proposal to de- 

 velop and overview implementation of long-term strategies for re- 

 ducing incidental take to as near zero as practicable. 



If necessary, these regional groups also could be asked to con- 

 sider and provide advice to the service on allocation of take if cur- 

 rent levels of take are greater than the biologically acceptable level. 



That finishes this brief summary, Mr. Chairman. If you or Mr. 

 Stevens or others have questions, I would be happy to try to an- 

 swer them. 



Thank you. 



[The prepared statement of Dr. Hofman follows:] 



Prepared Statement of Robert J. Hofman, Ph.D. 



I am Robert Hofman, Scientific Program Director of the Marine Mammal Commis- 

 sion. I appreciate this opportunity to present the Marine Mammal Commission's 

 views regarding the system that should be used to govern interactions between ma- 

 rine mammals and commercial fisheries after expiration of the interim, five-year ex- 

 emption enacted in 1988. 



BACKGROUND 



When the Marine Mammal Protection Act was enacted in 1972, it was recognized 

 that marine mammals were taken incidentally in several fisheries, particularly the 

 yellowfin tuna purse seine fishery in the eastern tropical Pacific. It also was recog- 

 nized that prohibiting such take could impair commercial fisheries and have signifi- 

 cant socio-economic impacts. Thus, the Act provided that the Secretaries of the Inte- 

 rior and Commerce could issue permits authorizing the incidental taking of non-de- 



