353 



Mr. Potter. Or at least hope so. 



Mr. Felando. I would hope so. 



Mr. PoTFER. That is all. 



Mr. DiNGELL. Mr. Anderson ? 



Mr. AxDERsoN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Felando, is the Medina net the type which has a 2-inoh netting 

 rather than the 4-inch nettinjo; that normally is used ? 



Mr. Felando. That is correct. 



Mr. Anderson. I have been somewhat shocked by the number of 

 porpoises that are reportedly killed each year as a result of being 

 cauffht in the nets. 



We have heard figures estimating 200,000 killed annually. And al- 

 though they estimate how many are killed, no one seems to be able to 

 tell us how many dolphin or porpoise there are. 



How many porpoise would you estimate there are ? Are we talking in 

 terms of millions ? 



Mr. Felando. I would like to have Joe Medina talk about this. This 

 is a very difficult thing. I wish we had more data to answer. 



In fact, I think only six sets of data, six cruises are the basis for this 

 estimate. 



I would like to have Joe speak what he sees out there at sea. 



Mr. Medina. I might sav I think those figures are awfully high, but 

 I might say from my experience and I have been ffoing to sea since I 

 was 7 years old, I would say we see as much porpoise today as we have 

 ever seen. 



There are also quite a bit of fish caught outside the porpoise. The 

 only area from the Equator to up like Peru and Ecuador, is strictly 

 what we call a school fishing; area. 



We have no problems down there except we get chased once in a 

 while by a f cav gunboats. 



I might add it is an area off of Costa Rica that they have a nickname 

 for the porpoise there. We are kind of happy they do not migrate 

 them any place else. We call them the untouchables. We cannot catch 

 them. We have been tr\'ing for 10 years and they have outsmarted us 

 every time. There Avere four of us and we followed the porpoise and 

 made a set with 16 speedboats. We were nominated to try with our 

 boat. 



Well, we got around them all rieht and made a real nice set, started 

 purse seining and they started leaking out the net and taking the 

 fish with them and we ended up with no f)orpoise or no fish. Once 

 they get outside, they are still looking at you. There are areas where 

 we cannot catch the porpoise and other areas where we catch them 

 verv easily. 



Well, to answer your question, we still see as much porpoise as we 

 ever did. We have this problem licked with this net of mine. I wish 

 it could be a year later so Ave could have a little more data for you. 



Within a year, everybody Avill have this net. 



Mr. Anderson. I aa-ouM like to explore this estimate of 200,000 por- 

 i:»oises killed a year. Noav I understand that this is not a count. It is 

 just an estimate that Avas made, using a prorated share of the catch 

 of tuna on so manv ships. They orive us the figure of 3.9 porpoise for 

 every ton of tuna. And that is Avhere they got the 200.000 figure. 



HoAv did thev actually determine that there were 3.9 porpoise killed 

 per ton of tuna ? 



