89 



And so the idea of benchmarks was that, using the notion of re- 

 ducing take over time to an insignificant level, the conservation 

 team would then look at all the possible ways that they could 

 change fishing behavior — whether it was time and area closures, or 

 seasonal closures, or new gear, or whatever it would be — and come 

 up with a plan that would say: By doing these things, in 3 years 

 we will have moved from 10 to 10 minus x, and then 10 minus 2x 

 over time. And you would keep checking in, to make sure they were 

 making progress. 



Insignificant rate approaching zero does not mean no takes. I 

 think there is a fundamental acknowledgement that accidents hap- 

 pen; but the point is, to tiy to avoid them. And since the fishing 

 industry would be at the table with the conservation team, we pre- 

 sume that it is very unlikely that there would be an annual ratchet 

 down kind of approach that would eventually shut someone down. 



Senator Stevens. Well, does it have to be tied to the mortality 

 of marine mammals in the fishing industry, or is it just reducing 

 stocks? Mortalities could also be caused by sports vessels or other 

 causes, you know. People sitting at the end of docks, shooting at 

 marine mammals. I think there is a lot more to it, this benchmark, 

 is it tied just to mortality by commercial fishermen? 



Ms. lUDICELLO. Yes. 



Senator Stevens. Solely? 



Ms. lUDICELLO. Yes. 



Senator STEVENS. You cannot have a benchmark set just because 

 of a decline in stock levels? 



Ms. lUDICELLO. Correct. 



Senator Stevens. Anyone else? 



Mr. Oilman. I would add a little to that, because we struggled 

 with the same issue until we understood that we were talking 

 about mortality rates, and not levels of take, as far as our statutory 

 benchmark. 



When we went back and looked at our mortality rates, we soon 

 discovered that the Alaska salmon fleets and groundfish fleets are 

 already at insignificant levels approaching zero, based on two 

 things: First, because the groundfish fleet was regulated under the 

 ESA to protect steller sea lions, we dramatically reduced our inter- 

 action level with stellers to the point where you are talking roughlv 

 a .001 percent interaction rate, based on fishing effort in the Gulf 

 of Alaska and the Bering Sea. It is almost at zero. 



Second, the Alaska salmon fleets in the central, southeast, and 

 western gulf began a voluntary program about 1989, to make sure 

 that our fleets were not shooting seals, and were doing their best 

 to harass the animals away from the nets. When you hear about 

 those high statistics of harassment, this means we are keeping 

 them away from the nets. We have virtually no deaths. Shumagin 

 Island salmon fleets took no harbor seals in 1991, period. Our mor- 

 tality rate for harbor seals is zero. 



So, we accepted the concept of using the mortality rate because 

 you can take a significant number of animals, and yet still have an 

 insignificant mortality rate. 



Senator Stevens. Thank you very much. Incidentally, you were 

 discussing, Mr. Chairman, the problem of dealing with nuisance 

 animals — I mentioned before, our State has been through this with 



