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from the Marine Mammal Commission. Mike Gosliner is the Com- 

 mission's General Counsel. 



The Commission was asked to provide an assessment of both the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service's proposed regime to govern 

 interactions between marine mammals and commercial fisheries 

 after October 1, and the alternative regime proposed by representa- 

 tives of the fishing industry and certain environmental groups. 



In my written statement, I detailed some of the background of 

 the two proposals, including the guidelines that the Commission 

 provided to the National Marine Fisheries Service as directed by 

 the 1988 Marine Mammal Protection Act amendments. 



The proposals are similar in many respects. Both, for example, 

 would afford priority attention to stocks that are endangered, 

 threatened, or depleted, and likely to be jeopardized further, or 

 that are likely to become endangered, threatened, or depleted if 

 steps are not taken to reduce taking. 



Also, both would continue the Marine Mammal Protection Act 

 goal of reducing the mortality and serious injury of marine mam- 

 mals incidental to commercial fishing operations to insignificant 

 levels approaching zero. 



Both proposals also would authorize the incidental take of de- 

 pleted as well as nondepleted species in certain situations and 

 would establish a straightforward procedure for conservatively cal- 

 culating biologically acceptable removal levels when the status of 

 the relevant stock is unknown or is uncertain. 



The proposals differ in a number of very substantive ways. 

 Under the joint industry/environmental community proposal, for 

 example, owners of vessels that engage in fisheries that take ma- 

 rine mammals would not be required to register and would not be 

 in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act if they engaged 

 in fisheries that take marine mammals without registering. 



Under the industry/environmental group proposal, marine mam- 

 mal stocks which interact with fisheries would be classified accord- 

 ing to their size, trends, and the level of incidental take. Fisheries 

 would not be classified according to the frequencies that they take 

 marine mammals, as they would be under the regime proposed by 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service. 



Under the industry/environmental community proposal, marine 

 mammal stocks that are endangered or threatened and likely to be 

 further jeopardized, or that are likely to become endangered or 

 threatened as a result of incidental taking, would be designated as 

 critical stocks and receive priority attention. 



Conservation teams, as Dr. Foster indicated, would be estab- 

 lished to develop conservation plans for each stock so designated 

 but not yet listed as or not endangered or threatened under the En- 

 dangered Species Act. 



As Dr. Foster indicated, conservation teams would include rep- 

 resentatives of the affected fisheries and interested environmental 

 groups. 



The principal responsibility of the conservation teams as we un- 

 derstand it would be to develop and overview implementation of 

 strategies to reduce the incidental taking of marine mammals to in- 

 significant levels approaching zero within 10 years. 



