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Mr. Downing. Thank you. Very interesting. 



]Mr. Lennon. The gentleman from California, Mr. Anderson? 



Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



First, I want to congratulate Dr. Ray and Mr. Schevill and Dr. 

 Norris on a very excellent statement. 



I want to thank you for your kind remarks on behalf of H.R. 10420. 



I would like to explore again some of the questions that have just 

 been raised and I would like to ask what is the total number of por- 

 poises. I have been trying to get a figure from someone and no one 

 will even guess. You said it was "infinitely greater," but that does 

 not tell how many. 



I asked someone the other day, "are we talking in terms of 5 million, 

 10 million" ? 



Cannot anyone give us a guess as to whether we are talking about 1 

 million or 20 million porpoises ? We can, in a sense, consider the 100,000 

 or 200,000 that are killed in a different perspective if we are. If it is 

 less than 1 million, then we are in trouble. 



Mr. Schevill. This again comes down to the stock business that we 

 were talking about. 



In our American tuna fishery it is the eastern tropical Pacific stocks. 

 The same sort of porpoise can be found all around the world in com- 

 parable latitudes also harvested by tuna fishermen of other nations. 



Anyone care to name a number ? 



Dr. NoRRis. Well, I just want to reinforce Mr. Schevill's statement. 

 We are only just barely beginning to know where these porpoises exist 

 and where these species limits are. 



We know next to nothing about their movements and this goes for 

 the entire world. There really is no population or species of porpoises 

 for which we can give you a decent figure. There simply has not been 

 the work done on this to give you a figure. 



Mr. Schevill. It is hard to do, among other things. 



Dr. Norris. It is a difficult problem. 



Mr. Anderson. My next question is to you. Dr. Norris. 



We have heard from the representatives of the tuna fishermen. I 

 wanted to ask them a question, but since I did not, I would like to ask 

 you. It concerns the theory behind the Medina net. 



Now, the fishermen believe it is going to work by putting the 2- 

 inch Medina net on the bottom and the 4-inch netting around the sides. 

 That is based on the undertsanding that the porpoise dives down and 

 would be forced to swim up again and hopefully out of the net. 



Now I hear others say that this is not the way to do it, that this is 

 not going to do any good and I do not want to be sold on a program 

 that is not going to give us the answer. 



Could you tell us what you know about the effect of having a net 

 that would have the 2-inch netting on the bottom and the 4-inch 

 netting on the side ? 



Dr. NoRRis. I can give you a notion of what I think these mesh 

 sizes will do. I can tell you nothing about the Medina net, itself. I 

 have no information on that except just a few sentences that have been 

 told to me in the last 2 days, so I really do not know too much about it. 

 The notion is that these animals, if the mesh is small enough, cannot 

 stick their snouts through the mesh and become entangled. They will 

 bounce off, in other words, so it is a matter of putting that small 



