Contact: Gordon Helm FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2/18/97
The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a cooperative plan that is expected to significantly reduce injuries and deaths to marine mammals from commercial shark and swordfish driftnets, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The proposed plan would reduce the bycatch and mortality of several marine mammal stocks, including pilot, sperm, and the rare beaked whales, that incidentally occur when fishing for swordfish and thresher shark with driftnet gear off California and Oregon. The draft plan, designed by a team of experts from the fishing industry, environmental groups, and scientists, was submitted by the Pacific Offshore Cetacean Take Reduction Team to meet requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
"This cooperative team was formed to ensure everyone had an opportunity to participate in reducing marine mammal interactions with commercial fishing gear as mandated by federal law," said Rolland Schmitten, fisheries service director. "The plan is a great example of teamwork and cooperation."
"I am excited to be part of a process that allows fishermen to be involved in determining the outcome of a take reduction plan," said Tony West, head of the California Gillnetters Association and member of the team. "Fishermen are much more informed about how to identify areas of marine mammal activity and how to avoid interacting with them."
"We were able to reach consensus in a group of people that represented opposite sides of the issue," said Hannah Bernard, director of education for the Hawaii Wildlife Fund and also a team member. "There isn't any question that this type of team effort is going to become more common as a way to seek solutions to our environmental problems."
Four primary strategies are being proposed to reduce bycatch in the fishery:
--Establish a fleetwide fishing depth requirement of six fathoms. Lowering nets has already significantly reduced incidental bycatch of cetaceans in this fishery. The proposed rule would require vessel operators to set their nets a minimum of six fathoms below the surface.
--Conduct mandatory workshops to provide skippers with information on how the take reduction plan was developed and how to avoid marine mammal entanglement. These fisheries service workshops also would solicit feedback from fishermen on how to reduce marine mammal interactions.
--Require all fishery vessels to use pingers to deter marine mammals from entering their nets. Preliminary results from a 1996 pinger experiment in the fishery show that the cetacean entanglement rate is almost four times less for nets using pingers than for those nets that do not. Pingers are high-frequency acoustic devices that may keep marine mammals from entering and becoming entangled in fishing nets.
Further limit the potential expansion of fishing effort in California and Oregon. This proposal would not affect those driftnet fishermen that annually land well beyond established minimum landing requirements. The fisheries service is seeking comment on two recommendations, one to cease reissuing driftnet permits that have been allowed to lapse, and the other to institute a permit buy-back program to purchase permits from those fishermen who only land the minimum number of fish required to maintain their permits.
Fact sheets regarding both the proposal and the take reduction teams are available by fax from the public affairs office at (301) 713-2370.
Comments on the draft plan must be received by March 31, 1997. Send comments to Chief, Marine Mammal Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226. Copies of the Federal Register notice, draft plan, and Environmental Assessment are available upon request from Irma Lagomarsino, Southwest Region, NMFS, 501 W. Ocean Blvd., Suite 4200, Long Beach, CA 90802-4213; or from Victoria Cornish, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226.