187 



Dr. White. I have indicated already, Mr. Chairman, that in my 

 personal view, some modification of the law would be desirable. 

 Mr. Leggett. All right. 



My colleague, aforementioned, has cross-examined you with respect 

 to the Hayakawa bill. I do not know whether that is pertinent or 

 not. I suspect, as indicated, you provided a drafting service with 

 respect to that legislation. Certainly, it has not been, to my knowl- 

 edge, an administration bill, lest you might have submitted the bill 

 to the chairman of this committee for his review prior to the filing, 

 so the question would be are you contemplating an administrative 

 position on this matter? 

 And, if you are, what is your time frame for resultion? 

 Dr. White. The administration is now freshly considering the 

 various options available to it, given the situation that we now have. 

 I can't give you an exact time frame, but it is going to be very 

 quick. We would like to take whatever action is taken quickly. 



Mr. Leggett. I could ask you about the number of fish taken by 

 ;he industry to date, but I think it might be better to ask that ques- 

 tion of the industry rather than the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service; so if you will wait around, we will all be tracking on the 

 same track. 

 Mr. Trible? 



Mr. Trible. No questions. 

 Mr. Leggett. Mr. Anderson? 

 Mr. Anderson. I have not found my notes. 

 Mr. Leggett. No questions are really required at this point. 

 Mr. Anderson. I have a couple here if I can find where my notes 

 are from the previous time. 



I am a little confused. Dr. White, with some of the figures that 

 we have, and some of the statistics that were given out here. 



I am more confused with this 5 percent — I think I have my 

 figures here now. 



I am confused by the statement that was put out by our commit- 

 tee, but they were using figures that came from your department, 

 from NOAA, and from' the NMFS. 



This is the bottom paragraph, and it says, "in commenting on 

 the definition of eastern spinner as depleted, the Director of the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service has said, 'since I concluded in my 

 lecision that the eastern spinner dolphin is depleted, no incidental 

 take of the eastern spinner dolphin can be permitted, even though 

 about 6.600 could be taken with a virtual certainty that the popula- 

 tion will increase with that level of mortality.' " 



I am a little confused with that. What do we mean by optimum 

 sustainable population? If a population is a certainty that the pop- 

 ulation will increase with a level of mortality that could even be 

 depleted by 6,600, wouldn't that be an optimum sustainable popula- 

 tion ? 



Dr. White. Well, the scientists at the conference called to look 

 at the optimum sustainable population did come up with a definition 

 of optimum sustainable population, and that definition provides that 

 the lower bounds of that level of optimum sustainable population 

 is in some range between 50 and 70 percent of the initial population. 



