506 



our industry. There are a lot of people joining groups and studying 

 issues and getting involved where we were not before. 



Senator Wirth. Any other comments? 



[No response.] 



Senator Wirth. We appreciate you all being here. There are a 

 couple of things that came through loud and clear from your indus- 

 try. One- is an issue that Senator Murkowski has been so much in- 

 volved with, which I completely agree with him on, and he has 

 been very eloquent on the floor of the Senate and elsewhere on the 

 subject of drift nets and how very damaging this is to the fishing 

 industry, with its long-term effect on all of the species. The second 

 area is one that you all have been hitting on today, and that is the 

 relationship of old-growth timber to the fishing industry and that 

 we have really got to do some more to protect that. It seems to me 

 that those appear to be the two major areas of concern that you all 

 have. Is that a fair generalization? 



Mr. EsQUiRO. Mr. Chairman, as you folks deliberate such things 

 as we are talking about today, it appears to me that — I was won- 

 dering, do you have people who come in and talk with you that you 

 can ask questions of and can perhaps get information from related 

 to life cycles of various species of salmon? What prompted this 

 question was you were asking Mr. Williams about the real value of 

 old growth timber. The real value of that old growth timber comes 

 in varying degrees, depending upon the species of salmon that you 

 are talking about. A couple of the species remain in the stream for 

 two years before they ever decide to go to south water. Another 

 species goes out as soon as it comes out of the gravel. Another one 

 does that or, if he chooses, he will stay up in the spawning water. 

 It occurs to me that somewhere along here it would be a value to 

 your committee to talk to some fish biology people and have a top 

 biologist and others to perhaps get some of these views into your 

 consideration. 



Senator Wirth. I certainly agree with that. What happens, I 

 think, in a hearing like this is that your interest is pigued in an 

 area, or an issue gets brought out, and that is what these hearings 

 are about. A lot of that has happened here: it is very helpful and 

 we are going back looking at these issues in particular. That, of 

 course, is going to require that we get a lot more expertise sitting 

 at this table. We are asked to be, as you know, experts on every- 

 thing from the Alaska pipeline to Angoon and shipments to 

 Angola, and that is just the A's. We move right through and do the 

 best we can. We really appreciate all of you being here. 



Just like last night, I had the privilege of spending some time 

 with Eric Jordan, whom all of you know, and he claims to have a 

 great deal of expertise on this issue, and who am I to argue? So, I 

 wanted to get you guys here today so maybe you could tell us a 

 little bit more. We appreciate it very much. 



Senator Murkowski. Very briefly. I would ask this of Mr. Peter 

 Esquiro. With regard to aquaculture effort in the streams that are 

 somewhat barren for any number of reasons, whether it be logging, 

 runoff or slides, do you try and prioritize those streams to address 

 the release, you know, the need to bring those streams back, and 

 we put aside the issue of interception on high seas. We do not know 

 what is happening really out there. We know a lot of the fish are 



