138 



"Other provisions of this title notwithstanding, no permit shall be granted 

 which authorize the placing upon marine mammals any tags, marks, or track- 

 ing devices of any sort." 



Sect inn 101(b) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 137(b)) 

 is revoked and subsection (c) is redesignated as (b) throughout the title. 



Section 102(b) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 1372(b)) 

 Is hereby amended to read as follows: 



"(b) Except pursuant to a permit for scientific research issued under sec- 

 tion 104 (i) of this title, it is unlawful to Import into the United States any 

 marine mammal or marine mammal product, including but not limited to 

 finished suede if snch an individual mammal was: 



CI) pregnant at the time of taking; 



121 nursing (whether obligatory or otherwise) at the time of taking, or 

 less than one year old. whichever occurs later: 



(3) taken from a species or population stock which the Secretary has. by 

 regulation published in the Federal Register, designated as a delegated species 

 or stock or which has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species 

 Conservation Act of 1969: or 



(4) taken either by clubbing to death or in any way deemed inhumane by 

 the Secretary." 



Add a new subsection 102(c)(4) to section 102(c) of the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 1372 (c)) as follows: 



"(4) any fur or leather of any species, in raw or finished form, from any 

 country which such importation has permitted the taking of any marine 

 mammals which at the time of taking are either nursing (whether obligatory 

 or otherwise) or less than eight months old, whichever occurs later." 



Mr. Deggett. Tt is obvious, of course, you indicate that the Jap- 

 anese do have methods of deterring the porpoise and yet the Jap- 

 anese eat as many porpoise as we kill. T think the evidence is some- 

 thing like 70.000 per year. We are out of the whale business, but the 

 great progress made by the International Whaling Commission is 

 setting the take of whales. I understand this year, of something like 

 .35.000. 



So unilateral action by the United States in many of these areas 

 can set a precedent, can be inspiring, but also we have got to keep the 

 carrot, T think, in reasonable proximity to the goal that we are cur- 

 rently playing, 



Mr. Fensterwald. T wonder if T might comment on that. Mr. 

 Chairman? 



T think in the case of the porpoise, we are setting exactly the re- 

 verse standards for the world. Tt was the United States that in- 

 vented this technique of fishing on porpoise. It is the United States 

 that is killing, still killing 75 percent of all the porpoise killed. In 

 the case of the whales, we quit first, and we said to the rest of the 

 world, if you keep this up you are not going to have any whales left : 

 and that has had some effect. 



The rest of the world could easily say to us. if you keep killing the 

 porpoises at the rate you are killing them, and you keep building 

 more boats and keep talcing more yellowfin out. you are not only 

 going to run out of yellowfin. you are going to run out of porpoise. 



There are efficient ways of killing whales, but the result is that 

 you do not have any whales left. 



T think rather than sotting a positive example for the world, in 

 this case we are setting an absolutely negative example. 



Mr. Leggett. As far as whales are concerned, the great progress 

 made by the law of the sea last year is that we are now down to an 

 agreement that we will only take the optimum sustainable yield of 

 whales which happens to be 35,000. 



