45 



Mr. Pallone. What I was going to suggest and I agree with ev- 

 erything you just said there but again we go back to this question 

 of how are we going to get this information. Ray Bogan was talking 

 to some of the first panel before and suggesting that part of the 

 problem is where is the money going to come from to hire scientists 

 or whatever and it is difficult to pay somebody or hire somebody 

 given the reduced Federal dollars to do a lot of this work and yet 

 I didn't hear anything from the first panel to suggest that we are 

 on our way to really getting this scientific evidence. 



If we can come out of today's hearing with some way of moving 

 ahead and do you guys have some suggestions about how we could 

 move ahead and get this scientific evidence either through some 

 Federal funding source or through volunteer efforts on your part? 

 Otherwise, how are we ever going to answer the questions that the 

 Chairman is bringing up? 



Mr. Bogan. If I may to a number of those things, first of all with 

 regard to some issues that Gil raised on, for example, stomach con- 

 tents, it seems like not such a big part of it but that is something 

 that our industry, for example, because of filet permit exceptions 

 that we have on all species we get a much better idea of stomach 

 contents. We literally filet hundreds of thousands of these fish per 

 year. We do go through stomach analysis. There is a practical rea- 

 son why we do it however in that practical confine we learn an 

 awful lot that can be added to the process. 



Mr. Saxton. It is advantageous to you to know what they are 

 eating. 



Mr. Bogan. You hit the nail on the head and if I may, that is 

 where one of the first showings of a decline in sand eels came in. 

 The second one was that our bait boats couldn't find them. We used 

 other boats to find sand eels and they couldn't be found. Sand 

 eels — I can't emphasize how important a forage fish that is. 



With regard to the lack of money to obtain data, industry has to 

 contribute and we are doing that. The Recreational Fishing AlH- 

 ance, for example, is putting together a whole new data collection 

 system that is going to be presented to NMFS after they have had 

 the opportunity to develop it through contractors who have worked 

 for NMFS and Eleanor Bohaneck from Sea Grant. 



So industry does recognize that it has a place in the process and 

 we are trying to do that. We are trying to do it with independent 

 people so that our input, and that our proposals, are seen as objec- 

 tive. We don't want to be going in to managers saying, "Hi, I am 

 Ray Bogan, let me tell you how I can count them" because I don't 

 have enough background to do that. The scientists can help direct 

 us on how to incorporate the public and the private sector and that 

 is what we are attempting to do. 



Mr. Pallone. But Ray, I guess what I am asking is are you sat- 

 isfied that NMFS or whoever is in the process over the next few 

 months or years, are they in the process of putting together some- 

 thing that is going to give us the scientific data so that good man- 

 agement decisions are made and if not, what can we do to effec- 

 tuate that because otherwise, where are we going? 



Mr. Bogan. No, I am not satisfied they are. I think the only way 

 that they do is when folks like yourselves make them. Bluefin tuna 

 and yellowfm tuna are a perfect example. 



