87 



necessarily has a view on that, but I would sure appreciate the 

 views of the other three of you. 



Mr. Thornburgh. Senator, I certainly have a view. I believe that 

 the nuisance animal provision that we negotiated with the environ- 

 mental community will deal with the issue at the Ballard Locks. 



Senator Gorton. Do we have to start all over again? 



Mr. Thornburgh. I do not think we have to start over on prov- 

 ing all the steps for nonlethal deterrence. We will have to ^o 

 through the exercise, at least on paper, in documenting that we did 

 those forms of deterrence. But I am presuming that we are not 

 going to have to go through and redemonstrate that we will have 

 to retranslocate, and so forth. 



I think that, in fact, the language should probably read that all 

 reasonable possible steps have been taken. I guess I am concerned, 

 what happens in another circumstance in Puget Sound, where fish 

 are threatened. Are we going to have to go through a 5-year 

 translocation process to demonstrate it, or not? I am not certain. 

 I am presuming that, when someone applies under this process, 

 goes in front of the special board to hear it, that they are going to 

 recognize that reasonable steps have been taken in Puget Sound on 

 pinnipeds, and that 



Senator Gorton. And that one place in Puget Sound is relatively 

 similar to another? 



Mr. Thornburgh. I am presuming that would happen. Relative 

 to the Cowlitz and the robust population of harbor seals, nothing 

 in the proposal addresses the overabundance of animals in a herd- 

 type situation; only identifiable individuals that have become a nui- 

 sance. 



We talked about robust. Franklv, I do not think we had enough 

 time to get to it. It was suggested that the fishing community use 

 the current act, and the OSP provisions: If a species is at OSP, 

 then we could go in and use the general waiver provisions. The 

 irony of that is that the Fisheries Service has continued to state 

 that those animals are not at OSP, even though most of us in wild- 

 life management would clearly argue that a population as robust 

 and as plentiful as that would seem to be at OSP. 



So, the fish industry is going to pursue this issue of OSP. We are 

 going to try to test and see if, in fact, there are ways to dem- 

 onstrate that those animals are at OSP. And if not, we may come 

 back and suggest that it is not a workable system, if you can never 

 declare a population that robust to be at OSP; how can we ever get 

 toward management of a stock, if we cannot even get past the first 

 step in the statute? 



Senator Gorton. Thank you. Ms. Young. 



Ms. Young. You know, again, to reiterate what I said a little ear- 

 lier, when that process was originally discussed in the negotiations, 

 because I was part of all of them and, as I said — anyway, I do not 

 want to repeat myself. 



The situation where you have a specific identity of individuals, 

 such as hershal, who are causing problems, was what brought to 

 the table the issue of nuisance animals. And we set it up to be able 

 to deal with iust that kind of situation. The Humane Society has 

 been involved in a similar situation with endangered tortoise and 

 crows, where they helped set up a system where you could lethally 



