145 



"What about the seals out there, they look so pretty and cute." The lobsterman 

 will say, "Their teeth are like steel and they cut up my nets; it bothers me and 

 I would just as soon knock them in the head." 



Then you find other people on the Maine coast 'who say that the 

 seals should not be touched. 



My point is, have you looked economically or otherwise at the effects 

 of an absolute moratorium on most of these animals, while you are 

 doing these studies? You apparently have not. 



Dr. Talbot. We have not looked into the full implications of that. 



Mr. Ktros. Let me ask you this question : Do you know whether the 

 Soviets have expressed any concern over our killing of polar bears? 

 Do you know anything about that ? 



Dr. Talbot. Yes, sir, it is my understanding that the Soviets have 

 expressed concern about this on several occasions. 



There is a polar bear group which met first some years back, at the 

 invitation of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife I believe, 

 and has been continuing under sponsorship of the International Union 

 for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. 



I held discussions with the president and director general of the 

 lUCN last month specifically about the question of polar bears. 



There is to be another meeting of the representatives of this work- 

 ing group in February of next year. They include representatives of 

 all the nations which have polar bears in their waters or territories. 



The lUCN is requesting that they at that time be prepared to make 

 specific recommendations for the type of measures, national and inter- 

 national, that would be required. 



As I understand it, the argument which the Russians have pre- 

 sented is that many of the polar bears which are harvested by the 

 United States are bears which have been born, denned, on Russian 

 territory, and they also point out that most of the rest of the bears 

 which the U.S. harvests come from Canada. 



Their argument, therefore, is that we are depleting their resource. 



The Russians say that they have stopped all polar bear hunting be- 

 cause apparently they have badly overharvested them in previous 

 years and they complain that why should they impose a ban on their 

 people "when we are profiting from it. 



Mr. Kyros. Incidentally, why do we harvest the polar bear ? 



Wliy has the polar bear not been put on the endangered species list ? 

 Do you know the reason ? 



Dr. Talbot. It was not on the endangered species list because the 

 biologists believe, both from the State of Alaska and the Bureau of 

 Sport Fisheries and Wildlife who had been studying the bears felt 

 that the total numbers and the status of the population was such that 

 they did not deserve to be on the endangered species list. 



Mr. Kyros. Did we count the Russian bears as our own in that study 

 I wonder ? 



Dr. Talbot. I suspect we must have counted Russian and Canadian 

 bears as our own because in effect, if you identify bears born elsewhere 

 as not our own, then almost none of the bears we harvest are our own. 



There is a counter argument made and that is that if the bears do 

 come down on the ice to our waters during part of the year, that we are 

 supporting them part of that year and therefore, we are not really 

 harvesting somebody else's bears. 



