106 



Mr. Oberstar. Do you have any information there to substantiate 

 the statement accompanying Colonel Kaummann's presentation that 

 from 11)58 until the 11)72 act, there wore 7 to 8 million porpoises 

 killed in connection with the tuna fishing; is that a reliable figure? 



Ms. Pryor. Sir, I am very leery of all these population estimates. 

 They all seem soft as melted butter to me. I feel very unhappy about 

 all of them. 



Mr. Oberstar. Do you feel that the Marine Mammal Commission 

 and all the other organizations of the Federal Government are ap- 

 proaching the study of porpoise populations in a proper manner as 

 fast as they reasonably can, or is there something lacking? 



Ms. Pryor. Well, if you are talking about history, the behavioral 

 crews that — as far as what we are doing now, I wish that the NMFS 

 decisions were coming along a little faster along with everyone else. 

 I see acceleration which seems to be promising. People seem to be 

 getting together faster and faster. I am hopeful. 



Mr. Oberstar. It certainly appears to be the key to this issue of 

 determining what are the optimum population levels. Until we do 

 have that data, we are going to continue to have problems with the 

 porpoise, it seems to me, unless we change the law. 



Do you see any need for changing the law, as suggested in earlier- 

 testimony bj r the American Tuna Boat Association? 



Ms. Pryor. Since I have absolutely no legal training, I really do 

 not feel equipped to say 



Mr. Oberstar. That does not disqualify you. 



Ms. Pryor. I notice people have opinions. 



Mr. Oberstar. It is probably a great asset in writing law. 



Ms. Pryor. If that is the only way to go, then I think that is the 

 way to go. If that is the only way to go. I hesitate to commit myself. 



Mr. Oberstar. There are those who would pretend that unless we 

 have the zero population level provision in the law, there will not 

 be any realistic pressure on the industry to continue its work to re- 

 duce mortality. 



Ms. Pryor. I disagree. 



I think the act provides plenty of opportunity for being rewritten 

 in such a way that the industry is still under constraints to perforin 

 and improve without being quite as punitive as it seems to be now. 



Mr. Oberstar. Is zero mortality unnecessary or an unreasonable 

 goal in light of the possibility of other restraints that could be 

 applied ? 



Ms. Pryor. Zero mortality is awfully extreme. 



Are we going to kill one or five ? It is a very difficult term to work 

 with. 



If you were putting this many sheep through a gate in the course 

 of a year, I do not think you would have zero mortality. It seems 

 like an arbitrary — it seems indeed it has been shown that it can be 

 interpreted dangerously rigidly. 



Mr. Oberstar. Can you provide the committee information on 

 whether the mortality incidental to tuna fishing is greater than or 

 less than natural mortality? 



Ms. Pryor. Oh, no; I would just be guessing. It is additional to 

 natural mortality. No matter how you look at it. The natural mor- 



