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BACKGROUND INFORMATION 



For the past five years, under the interim exemption program, NMFS has been 

 gathering data to assess the nature and severity of the problem of marine manunal 

 interactions with fisheries. These data show that interactions occur to a far greater 

 extent than Congress or the American pubHc realized. In fact, NMFS currently esti- 

 mates that more than 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year in human 

 interactions, much of it fishery related. This astounding rate of death does not even 

 include natural moralities to which all animal populations are subjected. After 20 

 years of N^IPA protection, fishery kills have resulted in NMFS placing 31 out of 

 64 marine mammal stocks in priority categories for urgent study. In just the five 

 years of the interim exemption program, three more stocks of marine mammals 

 have been accepted or proposed for listing as threatened under the Endangered Spe- 

 cies Act or as depleted under the MMPA. Two additional stocks have experienced 

 severe losses and are being considered for petitions to list them for protection. This 

 is a tragic pattern which cannot be allowed to continue. Crisis management must 

 cease. P^FS must take a pro-active stance to prevent fisheries-related problems. 

 This can only be done by mandating immediate reductions in lethal incidental takes, 

 based on the data which have been gathered during the past five years. Investment 

 in preventing problems is much less expensive fiscally and biologically than the cost 

 of tndng to reverse serious population declines. 



When Congress passed the interim exemption program in 1988, it directed NMFS 

 to develop a plan to expeditiously reduce unnecessary mortality. Instead of imme- 

 diate action, NMFS has proposed a system which, by its own admission, will not 

 even begin to address the critical issues of caps on marine mammal kills by the fish- 

 ing industry, or the development of monitoring systems and enforcement measures 

 for AT LEAST two more years. During that time, NMFS has stated that it expects 

 fisheries to effect voluntary reductions in marine mammal mortalities. Voluntary re- 

 ductions in kill was also a charge to the fishing industry by Congress during the 

 present five-year exemption program. However, such voluntary reductions have not 

 occurred. 



In March 1993 fishing industry and conservation community groups began a se- 

 ries of negotiations to formulate an alternative to the NMFS proposal which would 

 reduce the level of marine mammal deaths and address concerns over the NMFS 

 proposals which were held by both sides. IWC, HSUS and several other groups 

 which I represent attended these facilitated meetings. The end result of these meet- 

 ings was a document which a majority of conservation groups could not support. 

 TWs negotiated document lacked a mechanism for generating fiinds, lacked a reli- 

 able system for monitoring interactions, and once again left marine mammals with 

 a degree of protection which falls far short of Congress' original intent in its author- 

 ization of the MMPA. 



Additionally, a number of concerns with the NMFS proposal have not been ad- 

 dressed in the negotiated document. Conversely, the negotiated document lacks 

 some of the protections and common sense components which were contained in the 

 original NMFS proposal. 



SUMMARY OF CONCERNS WITH THE NMFS PROPOSAL 



1. Slow Implementation allows Inadequate protection of marine mammal popu- 

 lations which are sustaining critical levels of mortality. Fisheries required to achieve 

 the most substantial reductions in take could be permitted up to four years to re- 

 duce their take. For example, the Gulf of Maine population of narbor porpoise is de- 

 clining and is currently being kiUed at a rate above the ability of the population 

 to sustain itself. Rather than demanding that the gillnet fishery which interacts 

 with these porpoise reduce its take immediately in order to protect the harbor por- 

 poise population, the NMFS proposal would allow this fishery to be granted an ex- 

 tended period to comply because they have to make a very large reduction. This 

 would subject the harbor porpoise to additional years of unsustainable levels of mor- 

 tality, which places it in further jeopardy. 



2. Fisheries are encouraged to reduce incidental mortality, however the formula for 

 determining the allowable "removal" provides no incentive for these reductions. The 

 formula proposed by NMFS (which multiplied the population estimate and the re- 

 productive rate times a recovery factor, to encourage growth) set de facto quotas. 

 As long as fisheries did not exceed this "quota", they would not be penalized. In 

 some cases this quota was quite high. For example fisheries would be allowed to 

 kill up to 2,700 common dolphins in California and up to 6,000 northern sea otters. 

 These numbers are clearly not at an "insignificant level, approaching zero" as the 

 MMPA directs, and there is no incentive to reduce the level of mortality. In some 



