NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE JOINT MEETING OF THE BILLFISH AND HMS ADVISORY PANELS Thursday, June 10, 1999 1:00 p.m. NOAA Science Center 1301 East-West Highway Silver Spring, Maryland PARTICIPANTS: Irby Basco Nelson Beideman Randy Blankinship Raymond Bogan Karyl Brewster-Geisz Jose Campos Maumus Claverie Jack Dunnigan James Donofrio Bob Eakes Robert Fitzpatrick Sonja Fordham John Graves Robert Hayes Robert Hueter Ed Irby Pete Jensen Gail Johnson Rob Kramer Rebecca Lent Steven Loga Linda Lucas Gary Matlock Joe McBride Charlie Moore Russell Nelson Ellen Peel Corky Perett Richard Ruais Carl Safina Mark Sampson Robert Spaeth Alan Weiss Peter Weiss David Wilmot John Wingard Robert Zales C O N T E N T S PAGE Welcome/General Information/Overview of AP Meeting Objectives 8 Summary/Overview of HMS Framework Issues 11 Presentations & Discussion: Time/Area Closures 21 Public Comment 153 P R O C E E D I N G S MS. LENT: Good afternoon and welcome. Okay, welcome. Please take a seat. I believe this is like our 16th or 17th meeting if you count all the advisory panels, and it's probably the third or fourth joint meeting. Probably most importantly, this is our first joint meeting of the APs, or any AP meeting, since the final FMP and amendment and rule have been out so this is the start of our new beginning which is using our blueprint and moving forward. For those of you I haven't met yet, my name is Rebecca Lent. I am the chief of the Highly Migratory Species Management Division. Gary Matlock was planning on being here today but he had an unexpected court date and he's not here, nor is Miriam McCall. Jack Dunnigan, who is our moderator for this joint meeting, gracefully gave up the one seat left on the plane this morning so that I could get here on time and he'll be here in about an hour and Jack Dunnigan will be our moderator. Just on other housekeeping issues, you've all got your agenda. We will be circulating a packet of information relative to how to get your refund. It's a very important process. Be sure and follow all the directions. Also, I would note that tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock we will have a meeting for only folks on the HMS AP. It's open to the public so billfish are welcome to come, but because we're discussing an issue that's relevant only to the HMS FMP that will be the priority is to call on those folks to speak and then we'll hear from folks on the floor as well. And just relative to the agenda then, I'm going to speak for probably much less than an hour. We want to move right into some of our presentations relative to the time/area closures. After the break from 4:00 to 6:00 we'll have a public comment period and I hope that all of the members of the public, and perhaps even more importantly, the members of the AP will stick around to listen to the comments from folks from the floor. Before we go any further, I would like to go around the table. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Yeah, just a quick announcement regarding handouts. We'll have more copies of the billfish amendment and volume three of the FMP later this afternoon. Apparently there has been a bomb scare or some kind of a scare and they had to evacuate our building. A PARTICIPANT: It was a fire. MS. LENT: It was a fire scare. That's better than a bomb scare. Thank you. And we can't get back in there. Or, can we get back in now? A PARTICIPANT: Yes. MS. LENT: We're back in. We're back in business. Okay, so let me go around the table starting on my left. MS. LURES: I'm Katherine Lures. I work with Miriam McCall in NOAA GC. MR. SUTTER: Buck Sutter, Billfish Team leader. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Randy Blankinship, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department from Brownsville, Texas. MR. KRAMER: Rob Kramer, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. MS. PEEL: Ellen Peel, the Billfish Foundation, Fort Lauderdale. MR. MOORE: Charlie Moore, South Carolina DNR. MR. NELSON: Russell Nelson, Director of Marine Fisheries, Florida. MR. HUETER: Bob Hueter, Mote Marine Laboratory. MR. JENSEN: Pete Jensen, Maryland Fisheries and the Mid-Atlantic Council. MR. FITZPATRICK: Robert Fitzpatrick, Maguro America. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water Fisherman's Association. MS. JOHNSON: Gail Johnson, fishing vessel Seneca. MR. HUDSON: Russ Hudson, directed shark. MR. SPAETH: Bob Spaeth, Southern Offshore Fishing Association. MR. SANOVA: Miguel Sanova, chairperson, Caribbean Fishing Council. MR. WILMOT: David Wilmot, Ocean Wildlife Campaign. MR. DUNN: Russ Dunn, Ocean Wildlife Campaign, filling in for Carl Safina. MR. LOGA: Steven Loga, Tuna Fresh, Incorporated, Louisiana. MR. GRAVES: John Graves, Virginia Institute of Marine Science representing the ICCAT Advisory Committee members. MS. LENT: And just -- and Corky. And Ed, do you want to introduce -- A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. CLAVERIE: Mau Claverie, Gulf Council. MS. LENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, let me just do a quick recap of the meeting objectives. This is something that Gary wanted to do this afternoon but, as I said, he wasn't able to be with us. The objective of the meeting is to focus on two issues that we want to work on for continued management of highly migratory species, and these are issues which could be addressed through the framework provisions of the plan. The first issue is time/area closures for reducing bi-catch and the focus there is on juvenile swordfish and billfish as well as other factors and fish, and the second issue is the cap on the purse seine bluefin tuna quota allocation. As we review these issues, we would expect advisory panel members to base their input and their comments on how the various options for addressing these issues could help us or not help us meet the objectives of our fishery management plan. The new world order is we now have a Fishery Management Plan for highly migratory species. We have Amendment One for billfish. We are also managing some of these species -- well, tunas for the first time -- under Magnuson-Stevens so we have to consider for all of the species what the impacts are, what are the aspects relative to the national standards, so keep those in mind. I'm going to do a quick overview of the framework process and of the objectives in a second. And we know that there is a lot of interest in many other issues other than these two. We would ask that as those issues come up we just keep a list of them and that we discuss them tomorrow afternoon when we have a space on our agenda for other topics. In fact, we want to make sure that tomorrow afternoon we have a chance to get some input from the advisory panel and, if possible, from folks on the floor. And we'll hear from the folks tonight on other priority issues that you think we need to address. As I said, the final FMP is not the final word. It's our blueprint for the future. It's our framework under which we're going to operate, and we know that there is just as much, if not more, work ahead of us than we had in getting these plans together. Okay? So that's relative to the objectives of the meeting. Any questions on that? Mau. MR. CLAVERIE: Rebecca, do you have any corrections or addenda to the regulations because, if you do, we'd like to hear them tonight before thinking about it overnight. MS. LENT: I don't have any pre-prepared, but we will have a technical amendment shortly. And, Mau, if you have a list we'd be pleased if you could help us. Any other questions relative to the objectives of this meeting? (No response.) MS. LENT: Okay, then let's move on into a quick summary and overview of the framework issues. Now, we had available for handouts the sections of the FMP and the amendment that discuss the framework procedure for these plans as well as the objectives, and in the case of billfish we had the objectives in the original FMP, plus the new ones under amendment one. So pull those out and keep those in front of you. Again, what we're trying to do is make sure that as we discuss these issues we make an argument for or against how one option might or might not help us meet that objective. So the framework provisions under both HMS and billfish allow us to make adjustments to the regulations in a fashion that involves rulemaking, proposals, public hearings, final rules, all sorts of analyses, slightly more quick or slightly more expediently than under an amendment process, but not much. The amendment process -- the rulemaking process under Highly Migratory Species is pretty thorough in terms of its input and meaning. The adjustments to these regulations should meet the management objectives of the FMP as well as the national standards. You base the needs for adjustment on the annual safe report as well as deliberations that we have right here in the advisory panel and, again, tomorrow afternoon we'll be looking at other hot issues as they come out. By the way, as you know, we already have our first proposed rule issued under the framework provisions of the plan, and that is a proposed rule relative to the use of spotter planes in bluefin tuna, so that we're already underway with our blueprint for the future. The FMP and EIS which we've already prepared constitutes the safe report for 1999 and then each year starting in the year 2000 we'll have a new safe report. In the case of time/area closures, I just want to add a quick footnote relative to the public comments. Virtually all the comments we received from the recreational constituency, from the commercial constituency, from the environmental community, indicated that the time/area closure that we had proposed would be ineffective. One of the biggest concerns was that it was too small and that there might be fishing around the edge and that the displaced effort would just obliterate any benefits from this time/area closure. So we went back to the drawing board and we've conducted some more analyses and it's in the light of those new analyses that we wanted to, as soon as we could, call this meeting because this is an issue that we considered top priority. It really needs to be addressed and, indeed, it's been a criticism of the FMP since it's been out. Now take a look at your management objectives in the HMS FMP and billfish FMP. Just very quickly, you might want to check off some of those, first of all, that we feel would be relevant to looking at time/area closures. Under the HMS FMP there is the objective to minimize to the extent practicable bi- catch of living marine resources. Obviously, that's a key point here. There are also several objectives related to overfishing and rebuilding of these stocks. If we're reducing juvenile mortality or bi-catch mortality, we're contributing to rebuilding. We also have an objective to minimize to the extent possible economic displacement and other adverse impacts on fishing communities as we transit from overfished to healthy ones. That's relevant as well. And, of course, objectives related to the ICCAT -- to implementing ICCAT recommendations. We do have an ICCAT recommendation that says we should minimize the bi-catch of juvenile swordfish as well as billfish. And in the billfish FMP, again, minimizing bi- catch and discard mortality, all the objectives related to overfishing, minimizing the adverse social and economic effects to the extent practicable, ICCAT implementations and, from the original FMP for billfish, maintaining the highest availability of billfish to the recreational fishery. Under the national standards of course for bi- catch, which you want to refer to as National Standard Nine. National Standard One is also relevant, optimum yield. National Standard Eight, taking into account the effects on communities. National Standard Ten is also an issue as we look at time/area closures, safety at sea. We want to make sure we're doing what we can to minimize the effects on the safety of fishing vessels. For the purse seine cap we'll be talking about this again starting tomorrow morning at 8:00. We'll have, of course, public comment and discussion at 4 o'clock today. Objectives in the HMS FMP that might be relevant: minimizing to the extent practicable economic displacement and other adverse impacts on fishing communities; providing the data necessary for assessing fish stocks; consistent with other objectives of the FMP, managing for optimum yield, to provide recreational opportunities, preserve traditional fisheries, et cetera; better coordinate domestic conservation and management of the fisheries considering...historical fishing patterns and participation. Under the national standards, some of the standards you might want to consider in evaluating options relative to the bluefin tuna purse seine cap, conservation and management measures should not discriminate between residents of different states, allocations should be fair and equitable, et cetera. National Standard Five, no measure shall have economic allocation as its sole purpose. National Standard Eight, again, a sustained participation of communities, minimizing adverse economic impacts on such communities. So that's just a little bit of background and encouraging you to rely upon the FMP objectives, rely upon the national standards as you review those and interpret them relative to the different options we have for the issues that we're discussing. That helps us write a better rule, if indeed we proceed with rulemaking, and it helps us support what the different alternatives would be, the pros and the cons, and how they help us with our fishery management objectives. Okay? Any questions relative to that? Yes, Mau. MR. CLAVERIE: As you are aware, I want to add another criteria but it's really probably a subset of one. Do we do that now or later, and just how do we go about doing that? MS. LENT: Why don't you go ahead, Mau. MR. CLAVERIE: Okay, I've got to get my act together because I just got these papers. Objective one in the billfish plan is -- not objective, problem. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) microphone (inaudible). MR. CLAVERIE: Okay, sorry. All these mikes work different. Is that okay? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. CLAVERIE: Can you turn the thing up? Okay. In the billfish plan problem one, not objective one, problem one, is intense competition for the available resource between the recreational fishery for billfish and the other fisheries that have a bi-catch of billfish. And I want to add that in as a subcriteria under one of the objectives in the billfish FMP but I'm looking through to see which one. It's the one about - - apparently number eight. I think that's where it would go. I'm not locked in on that. There might be a better place elsewhere. MS. LENT: Okay, thank you, Mau. MR. CLAVERIE: So I don't know how that gets done but -- MS. LENT: You've made that statement on the floor and when folks are discussing the pros and the cons I think -- hit that button again, Mau -- we can consider that. The emphasis is on reducing bi-catch of juvenile swordfish and billfish. There are other factors to consider including protected species, including economic displacement, safety, interaction between different gear types. That's certainly part of the discussion in the pros and the cons. Any other comments relative to this? And, Rich, why don't you introduce yourself. You missed -- MR. RUAIS: Rich Ruais, East Coast Tuna Association. Sorry for being a few minutes late. Are you on the agenda right now or are you past that? I just had a comment on the agenda. MS. LENT: Well, I guess we didn't do a formal adoption of the agenda. Would you like to do that? MR. CLAVERIE: (Inaudible.) MR. RUAIS: Thank you, Mau. I appreciate that. MS. LENT: Go ahead. We sort of went over it quickly. MR. RUAIS: Okay. Well, the comment I had was that on the draft agenda I recall there was an item on the second day where there was going to be a presentation on the purse seine cap and now I see that it's just a discussion. And that's fine with me. I'm not suggesting you need to do any kind of a presentation, but if there is going to be anything from the agency though, I was going to ask that you put it prior to the public comment period today rather than wait until tomorrow, recognizing that it would probably be short whatever it was you were going to do anyways. MS. LENT: Thanks, Rich, for that comment. In fact, the main points that I wanted to make was here we go, we have something we can do under frameworking, what is frameworking all about, what are the management objectives and the national standards that apply. So I folded it into what I just did and there is certainly no problem with sort of doing a recall at 4 o'clock if we need do. Okay, since Rich is here why don't we go down and -- we missed some introductions. Linda, do you want to say good afternoon? MS. LUCAS: Linda Lucas, Economics Department, Eckerd College. MR. WINGER: John Winger, Department of Anthropology, University of Memphis. MS. LENT: Bob and Rusty, do you want to introduce yourselves or are you going to be incognito? MR. SPAETH: I already did. Bob Spaeth, Southern Offshore Fishing Association, Madeira Beach, Florida. MR. HUDSON: Rusty Hudson, directed shark, Daytona Florida. MS. LENT: Did everybody around the table then -- okay. If there are no more questions, we are going to proceed to agenda item -- well, I guess the presentation and discussion on time/area closure. Again, for those of you who missed the introduction, Jack Dunnigan is on his way here and he will be moderating the discussion. We're going to start with a presentation of the analyses by the National Marine Fisheries Service. After that, I'm going to ask the AP members if they have presentations they would like to make or someone on their behalf to come forward as well. So, Karyl, why don't you come on forward. And I believe everybody has handouts relative to your presentation, right? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I'll try to speak into this but if I miss for some reason, just let me know. As Rebecca was saying, we are trying to do some time/area closures. We have two goals on this: first, to reduce the discards of juvenile swordfish; and our second goal is to reduce the discards of billfish. So when we first start with this, we need to take a look at where the discards are occurring. So I plotted out some maps. This is for swordfish discards between '96 and '97. Everybody should have these. These are by quarter. The same symbol on each map means the same amount of fish. Some maps don't have the symbol simply because there weren't any fish caught within that range. For swordfish discards, as you can see, most of them seem to occur in quarter three and four right along the east coast of Florida. We've seen this before in some of Jean Kramer's stuff and what we proposed in the draft FMP. I've also plotted out blue marlin. The billfish, as you'll see, is different than the swordfish in that we actually have two areas to look at. We have the Gulf of Mexico and we also have right off the east coast of Florida, but they are slightly different time frames than swordfish. The swordfish happened on the east coast of Florida in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. For billfish we're looking at quarters two and three for the most part. And you have it for sailfish, the same sort of thing, and the same type of thing for white marlin. So this is just a quick overview of where we're looking. Based on these maps, I picked out some areas to look at. I'll start with the swordfish time/area closure. Before I actually go over the areas, I'd like to show you what we like, what we're looking for, if you turn to the graph labeled SWO-3 up at the top. I'll wait till it looks like everybody has it. You should have two packages, one with billfish stuff and one with swordfish stuff. Okay. These graphs are a little bit hard. First of all, anything above zero percent actually means a reduction in the number of fish that we're seeing so, for instance, this top bar going across, swordfish discards, we actually can get a reduction in discards up to about 20 percent. Anything below zero percent is an increase in the number of fish. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It's an increase in the number of fish throughout the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. It depends upon what fish. If you look at these pluses going down, they are pelagic shark discards so, in that case, it would be an increase in the pelagic shark discards. But you can also see the bays are down below zero percent. That's an increase in the number of bays kept. Does everybody understand that? No. A PARTICIPANT: On the bottom axis, months closed, is that if you close it for one month, two months, three months? And what month is it? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. What this is is this is looking at it cumulatively and you see the numbers ten, eight, twelve, nine. So if you close October, this is the percentages you would expect. If you close October and August, those are the percentages you would expect. And so by the very end you're closing all the months. Why they're in such a weird order instead of going January, February, March, is because I sorted it by discard per unit effort, so October has the greatest swordfish discard per unit effort, followed by August, and May has the lowest discard per unit effort. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right, the swordfish discards. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: In October you can get about probably 4 percent reduction over the entire Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico if you close this particular area. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: No. If you close October and August, eight and ten, both of those months together, you'll get probably an 8 percent reduction in swordfish discards. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water. As a general comment to Rebecca, Rebecca, I've been working with this stuff, you know, pretty intensively for quite a while, but just sitting down here and getting this stuff is very difficult even for me. I know it's got to be difficult for the rest. But, Karyl, how is this different from the information that we got two years ago and one year ago and six months ago in presentations from Jean Kramer? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Are there substantial differences or -- A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) microphone. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I didn't realize it had gone off. It's a very different analysis. It's taking into account different areas. It's taking into account displacement, and it's taking into account all the landings throughout the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and all the discards. So we've expanded the analysis based on a lot of the comments we received on the draft FMP. MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay. And this is still just through '97? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All of this incorporates '96 and '97. We chose those years because in '95 the weird change between the season occurred. MR. BEIDEMAN: Did you find substantial differences, because what we've been working on is Jean Kramer/Jerry Scott's analysis of, you know, basic areas where over 50 percent of the catch is discarded dead as hot spot areas. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. We didn't look at any of that. This is straight -- this is everybody, everything that has been recorded landed or reported discards. It's not limited between 50 percent of the sets occurred in this area and 25 sets a year, or what your criteria -- MR. BEIDEMAN: Right. So this is not hot spot. This is more scattered -- scatter-gun? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I started with those plots that I showed you and then I picked areas from that. And right now I'm trying to explain how these graphs work. MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay, thank you. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead. A PARTICIPANT: So real basic here. This SWO-3 means that the percentage is the percentage of that amount of fish that is caught in the area bounded by the SWO-3? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yeah. I'll be getting to what the actual areas are. A PARTICIPANT: Okay, I'm getting ahead of you then. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yeah. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead, Ellen. MS. PEEL: Before we move on, I just want to make sure -- you know, I hate to ask something that's probably perfectly clear to you but -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: No, not necessarily. MS. PEEL: For instance, on swordfish where you've got the open triangle, to get a 15 percent reduction, is it reading it correctly to say you'd have to close October, August, December, September, November and March, it looks like, to increase -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes, you would need to close -- MS. PEEL: To increase what? Discards? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. MS. PEEL: To decrease your discard? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes. MS. PEEL: Okay. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead. MS. PEEL: I just wanted to make sure I was reading the -- decreasing discards or increasing retention is what you're -- or increasing discards. All right, okay, I just wanted to make sure I was reading it right. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. A PARTICIPANT: Karyl, you said you sorted -- the order of the months is sorted according to least discard per unit effort to the most discard per unit effort? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: The greatest discard to the least discard per unit effort. A PARTICIPANT: So -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes, so October has the greatest and May has the least. A PARTICIPANT: Of what, though? Of swordfish? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Swordfish discard per unit effort in that area. A PARTICIPANT: So what do all the rest of these plots on this particular graph mean? Do they mean anything since they are dealing with other species? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. If -- you're looking at the swordfish discard line. A PARTICIPANT: Right. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: If you want to maximize the reduction in swordfish discards, you would go over to, I guess that's June, and if you close the entire year in this area up to June you would see not only a reduction in swordfish discards of about 20 percent; you would also see a reduction in sailfish discards of about 15 percent, a reduction in white marlin discards of almost 5 percent. So it's taking into account what else is being landed in the area and how well they're doing, because we're trying to reduce the swordfish discards and hopefully billfish discards as well, but without really affecting what else is being caught. A PARTICIPANT: Okay. Now I understand that. Now I understand arithmetically why you would plot this the way you did, but from a management perspective is that practical to pull months, you know, different times of the year, and order them in that way? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We need to choose some time for a time/area closure. This is one way of doing it. We are also looking at quarters but I haven't quite figured -- finished that analysis yet. We're looking at the entire year. MS. LENT: Let me just add to that. In fact, when we're discussing the pros and cons of different options, obviously from an enforcement point of view and facility of planning and everything, it would be preferable to have consecutive months. In fact, we often find that the months are clustered and it makes sense. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead. MR. PERETT: I apologize. I'm still not -- MS. LENT: Please say your name before you speak. MR. PERETT: Corky Perett. Can we take one of the lines on swordfish on -- or let me use the swordfish discard, again the open triangles. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes. MR. PERETT: On the left we start with month ten and it looks like it's around 5 percent. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes. MR. PERETT: And as we go forward, ten to eighth month, it's a cumulative thing. I'm correct so far. Well, then would you explain to me how after ten months we get to June and we're approaching roughly 20 percent, how does it then go down when you've got two more months in the year? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It's all because of the displacement. The displacement does funky things. MR. PERETT: But it at best has got to stay even if there is no discards whatsoever during those latter two months of April and May. How does it actually go down? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It goes down because the boats are being displaced into areas that during April and May have greater effort. Go ahead. MS. LENT: Let me just add a point to Corky's -- this is something that's very important. Relative to everything else you've seen prior to this except for the bluefin time/area analyses, these numbers take into account displaced effort. They say let's close this area and this time and this -- close this area in this time. But it doesn't assume that those sets go away. It assumes that the sets are going to be made somewhere outside the area, and there's an assumption made about where those sets will be redistributed. That's why it's the net effect. It's a very important difference with what Jean Kramer has done in the past. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It also has to do with the catch occurring in the entire Atlantic and Gulf. A PARTICIPANT: The entire Atlantic or the US of A? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: U.S. Go ahead. MR. MOORE: Charlie Moore, South Carolina. If you look at, like, white marlin discards, if you look at that one, and it seems to indicate that as you go below the line you have more fish, I don't see how it decreases. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It doesn't decrease the white marlin. I'm sorry, did I say -- MS. PEEL: You said earlier it did. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I'm sorry. I meant this line, which is the swordfish kept. I must have just mispoke. MS. PEEL: Yeah, you said white -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Sorry. Go ahead. MR. NELSON: Russell Nelson. How did you handle displacement of effort? I mean, that seems to be a fairly important -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. I started with this area that I'll call SWO-3. I assumed that all of the hooks that were in that area, if we closed it during a certain month, went anywhere within 4 degrees of that area. So four degrees outside that area in all directions. And that area kept its same catch per unit effort and discard per unit effort; it just happened to have more effort. MR. MOORE: So you distributed any direction in four degrees? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Any directions four degrees outside that area. MR. MOORE: Was there a basis for that assumption? I mean, some kind of -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We can change that assumption. MR. MOORE: Well -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That's what I started with now. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead, Nel. MR. BEIDEMAN: What Russell is saying is, you know, very important. At the last meeting, you know, we had discussed that the preliminary information on observer coverage for the FMP proposed area was like 23 dead discards per thousand, south of that 38 dead discards per thousand, north of that 17 discards per thousand, and north of that area 13 discards per thousand. So it's very important where that displaced effort may go and factors such as these are small boats that really can't fish far from shore and the Gulf stream goes out as you go north would suggest that they'll basically move toward the south, at least the smaller boats, into the 38 per thousand rather than the 23 or 17 or 13. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: This says they can go south as well. It's distributed equally in the area of four degrees around this area, so they could go four degrees to the south or four degrees to the north. That's included in the analysis. MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay. A PARTICIPANT: It makes a big difference. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Sorry. Go ahead. MR. CLAVERIE: Can you break out how many of these discards and kepts are within the 50,000 line or shallower? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I haven't done that yet. MR. BEIDEMAN: No, because they can't really break into the one degree but I would say none unless it's, you know, a piece of gear that's gotten away or something but really don't drift up into 50 fathoms. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Are there any more questions? Okay. A PARTICIPANT: A clarification. Did you say that these numbers represent the percentage of all swordfish, not just swordfish discarded in that area? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That's correct. A PARTICIPANT: So these curves represent a percentage of all swordfish? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All the swordfish reported, yes. A PARTICIPANT: Rebecca, is it your intent to have this panel suggest to you some percentage reduction or are you going to suggest to us that you have some target percentage reduction in mind? MS. LENT: Well, this is for the time being, based on these very preliminary analyses, this would be our preferred alternative. We obviously have more work to do and more analyses to conduct. We need to hear from you indeed on what you think is a good goal and what are the trade-offs and what about the assumptions. As Russ and Nelson have pointed out, we have to make assumptions about displaced effort. Are there better assumptions to make? Give us some suggestions. A PARTICIPANT: I guess I'm confused. What is the preferred alternative you're talking about? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: SWO-3 for swordfish. A PARTICIPANT: Pardon? MS. LENT: This chart that's SWO-3 out of the options that we've analyzed so far -- and there is plenty more analyses we can do -- but this appears to be the most appealing right now, but we need to hear from you about the pros and cons about it. A PARTICIPANT: I'm still confused. There's a lot of choices there. There's one month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I was getting to that. A PARTICIPANT: And they have some percentage. So has anybody from the stock assessment side given you any advice on what a 5 percent reduction does to the stock rebuilding or the rebuilding schedule versus 20 percent? MS. LENT: Well, we know what replacement yield is and we know what current yield is so we can make some assessment ourselves within this panel as to how much this contributes. That's an important goal but, again, the overarching goal is reducing bi-catch as much as we can to the extent practicable, et cetera, et cetera. Now, SWO-3, as Karyl points out, depends on which months you're going to choose, but it's the one that appears to have the biggest bang for the buck. It's able to go the highest. We have to look at all the effects and all the assumptions. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. This one goes pretty high and it also doesn't really impact a lot of the other -- the catch or the discards -- all that much. What we've been looking at is going all the way up to the Asentope (phonetic) up to June, so everything would be closed in this area except for April and May. Unless we have changes of assumptions, we have ideas from the panel of where else to look and what else to look for. Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Karyl, I'm sorry but my mind keeps drawing me back to the information that we have been working with over the past couple years, Jean Kramer's documents that I'm most familiar with. And what Jean and Jerry had done is laid out, I believe, eleven two-degree squares where over 50 percent were discarded. And I believe the bottom line of that was if you shut all these down it would amount to about 28 percent reduction without redistributing the effort and only 7 percent reduction with a basic redistributing of the effort. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That's because they did it a very different way. They had the criteria of your 50 percent in those areas. We do not. A PARTICIPANT: Again, just to make sure that I got it right, what you did was for this SWO-3 area, the total number of swordfish caught is the percentage -- that's the 100 percent from which the other things - - and then you took the total number of sailfish caught and figured your reductions and discards in the total number so that each species has a total number from which you got the percentage, right? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Again, a clarification. Looking at SOW-3, am I reading this correctly that if you close SOW-3 for the entire year, right, you would get a reduction in discards of swordfish by about 18 percent and you would reduce the actual swordfish catch, total U.S. catch, by 6 percent? Am I reading that right? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That's correct. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: That number, the total number of swordfish kept, that is -- that number is from the entire U.S.? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All of this is from the entire U.S. A PARTICIPANT: Oh, okay. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All of this is relative to the entire -- MR. BEIDEMAN: I have a question. It's a more general question, probably for Rebecca, and it cuts across all the different proposals that I've heard of. And that's, you know, how do we close areas that are beyond our EEZ, you know, in Bahamian waters, et cetera? I mean, how is that done? You know, what is the relevance of that? MS. LENT: Well, we haven't found a way to do that yet. Actually, the way this analysis is done, there is just some big chunks taken, including like Indianapolis. Obviously, you just sort of, for purposes of the analyses, you cut out some chunks. If indeed we go forward with proposals, that would have to be worded in such a way that anything that's not in the EEZ is not relevant. I mean, if it's in somebody else's EEZ it's not relevant. A PARTICIPANT: Could we close it outside of our own -- on the high seas? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yeah, to U.S. fishermen we could close it beyond the EEZ, yeah. Thanks, good question. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Now, is everybody clear on how these graphs work, because this is the whole basis of what I'll be showing. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yeah, we'll walk through more examples. Go ahead. MR. CLAVERIE: I think I'm clear but I'm not clear on what use we're going to make of these. This is just the basis for something else so that we get to some practicality? I'm assuming that the way these graphs are set up is if you wanted to maximize the bang for the buck you would pick the months that are numbered here that show the greatest increase in percentage change of swordfish discards, and I don't know about the decrease in swordfish kept. In other words, if you look at the line between ten and eight, it goes up pretty good on swordfish discarded. A PARTICIPANT: What graph are you on? MR. CLAVERIE: I'm on SWO-3, the one we've been discussing. So I assume that means -- I don't know which month that is. I assume that means if you close the tenth month you get the biggest increase, you get the biggest number -- I don't know what you would say. You get the biggest decrease in swordfish discarded in one month of any month on this graph because it's the steepest slope. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. CLAVERIE: It's sort of that way, okay. A PARTICIPANT: Sorted. MR. CLAVERIE: Oh, sorted. MS. LENT: Sorted that way. The why it goes October, August, December, September, November, is Karyl arranged for these plots such that the one that appears first is the one with the highest swordfish discard per unit effort, then the next highest, then the next highest, then the next highest. It's not a random order here. MR. CLAVERIE: Except towards the end it goes down. MS. LENT: That's because of the displacement, displaced effort. As the displaced effort goes out into other areas, it may be pushed off into areas where we didn't have as much effort before and, in fact, we have high rates of discards. The fishermen have been avoiding those areas purposefully so you get into some kind of declining returns. Remember that all of these numbers are net. It's not just what you lose by taking that effort out of that area; it's what you lose by displacing effort from the hot spot to the next closest area. That's very important because a lot of the things we've looked at before don't have that displacement. Until you know that, you don't know the net effect of a time/area closure. You need this information. And in terms of your first question, Mau, you know, you're starting to understand but you don't know what it's all going to lead to. I think this gives us some numbers, get a start to say where are we zeroing in. It's not just hot spots. It's more than hot spots. It's where do people go when they avoid the hot spots. What's the net effect? And if you can help us with assumptions on a better way to deal with displacement, we need to hear about that, too. Trade-offs. There is a lot of trade-offs. We're going to have some increase in discards of other things that we don't like. We want to know about that, too. MS. LUCAS: Linda Lucas. Can you tell me intuitively why SWO-1 and SWO-3 sort of look a lot alike? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That has to do with the areas of (inaudible) and areas of (inaudible). Sorry. I'll be getting into the areas as soon as everybody is clear on what these graphs mean and do, and then I will show what the areas are and the other results from those areas. A PARTICIPANT: SWO-3. And if my objective was to reduce blue marlin discards, I'm assuming I would be focused on the months of June, July, and August. Am I reading this correctly? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: What this is showing is I pretty much focused on swordfish discards for these areas, billfish discards in the other areas that I chose. So there is -- you are getting pretty good for the sailfish and for the blue marlin in certain months in here. A PARTICIPANT: It looks like October, August, December, September, and November are blue marlin and then it gets worse for them after that. Now, these months are -- you go from October to August. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. PERETT: Thank you. Corky Perett. Let's try again, back to basics. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. MR. PERETT: SWO-3 is a geographic description. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. MR. PERETT: And all these pluses or minuses as to whether it's discarded or kept only refers to this geographical area? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes, for this -- MR. PERETT: I got -- wait, wait -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: So this graph -- MR. PERETT: Wait, that's where I'm going because -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Well, it refers -- the percent discards and everything are all relative to the U.S. catch but what we did is we only closed this area during these months. MR. PERETT: So -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It's all relative to the U.S.. MR. PERETT: So for SWO-3, and we'll take that first month -- again we'll work with swordfish because that's the one we're talking about the most thus far. In the month of October, the discards at roughly, say, 4 percent and the kepts swordfish are, say, 2 or 3 percent. Now, in that geographical area -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: In that area -- MR. PERETT: And we have the others that show what it is for SWO-1 and so on. Okay. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. If you close that area, that's what the reduction will be. MR. PERETT: Thank you. MR. CLAVERIE: How do you define discards? Is that dead discards or all discards? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It's total discards, both alive and dead. MR. CLAVERIE: Is there a mortality -- an observed mortality different at different times of the year or different areas? I mean, is that considered in this? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: This is total discards. It's not taking into account whether we're discarding dead or alive. MS. LENT: That's a good question and I ask if anybody here might want to comment on that. I'm not aware and we'll have to ask the science center of whether there might be a difference in the percent of swordfish discards that are dead relative to certain times and areas. As far as I know, there's none. Maybe Bill or other -- MR. CLAVERIE: The fishermen ought to be able to come in on that if the scientist can't because they've seen them. It's pretty well -- I mean, if you're just going to keep bait live you have a much better chance in a cooler water than you do in a warmer water. And I assume that that's true with all fish. I don't know. Maybe John can tell us or something. There may be a substantial difference or there may not in the mortality, actual mortality involved, and that's what we really have to get to. So if we can do that, maybe we ought to. I don't know if we can do it. MS. LENT: But, Mau, I think for purposes of this discussion we'll assume that where we have the highest rate of discards we probably have the highest rate of dead discards. There could be some variations therein, but that's a really good question and we'll follow up on that. MR. CLAVERIE: Well, the highest rate of discards is in a cool month, the tenth month, and so that may be the highest rate of live to dead on the discards. I'm just guessing, you know. I mean, it may be totally different from that in the swordfish fishery. A PARTICIPANT: I'm having trouble with the months the way they are arranged. I understand that starting right out looking at SWO-3, October is the month that has the biggest reduction in swordfish discards. However, as you go along and the months are so out of sequence -- and maybe I'm interrupting your presentation here and you would have explained it -- but how do we figure out consecutive months? I'm having trouble with that. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: The rate of discards. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Okay, that's right. But even so, it's still hard to get from the graph to know what block of months or -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Karyl, I'm looking at sword four and I'm imagining that the split at 33 may have come out of conversations that I had with you as far as the difference between 32 and 33, and 33 and 34? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay. Well, if I can give folks a tiny bit of background. Without getting into the pelagic longline industry proposal, it goes up to 34 degrees. And some fishermen raised that, you know, the area between 33 and 34 really isn't that much of the problem. And we looked up those numbers and from 33 to 34 we're looking at approximately 370-some, I think it was 377, dead discards over a six-year period, and the area from 32 to 33 is 3,700. A large difference. MS. LENT: Before Karyl starts this, I would ask everybody to please look at the screen. This is absolutely critical to understand. The SWO-1, SWO-2, SWO-3, SWO-4, that's sort of a progressive range. Please pay attention to what SWO-1, 2, 3, 4, means. Thank you. A PARTICIPANT: Is SWO-3 (inaudible)? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I'm getting there. We start with the FMP. That's what we have originally proposed. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. And SWO-3 is this entire block going from 76 to 82 and 24 through 33. It's the entire block including the FMP area. SWO-1 is the entire block from 74 to 82 and from 24 to 33. So SWO-1 includes SWO-3 and the FMP. It is not just the skinny little rectangle. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That goes back to why SWO-3 and SWO-1 look pretty much the same on the graphs. Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Is there any consideration given that, you know, depending on, you know, what areas are closed, there may not be a displacement of effort? I mean, some of those boats may just be out. MS. LENT: These are good points, but let's finish the definition of these four areas and then we'll come back to that. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead. MR. BASCO: Irby Basco, Texas. Do you have any kind of numbers of the SWO-3 area only of numbers of swordfish discarded? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I don't have an overhead of the numbers. I have it on the computer back on my desk. That's how I did all those graphs. MR. BASCO: I was wondering if somebody made note of those numbers here on the panel. MS. LENT: We can calculate those. Actually, if you open up your FMP to the total amount of discards in '96 and '97 and calculate what that percent reduction would mean because all these percentages are relative to the total amount of discards, total amount of landings, et cetera. MR. BASCO: Okay, thank you. A PARTICIPANT: Okay. So SWO-4 goes from 22 to 36 and 76 to 82, so SWO-4 includes SWO-3 and the FMP? A PARTICIPANT: And it definitely includes (inaudible). MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It doesn't include 1 and 2. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: And then SWO-2 is this entire big block. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Everything. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: SWO-1 goes from 74 to 83, and 24 to 33. They are very big areas. They are not these little rectangles. They are the big area. Everything includes SWO-3, basically. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Yes, the FMP is the smallest and then the SWO-3. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: 33 comes just about to Charleston, huh? That's why we chose 33 so we weren't cutting across -- A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: So when I did the displacement, what I did is when you're looking at SWO-3, fishermen could go four degrees north, four degrees east, four degrees south, and four degrees in the west in the Gulf of Mexico. And that was the same for all of these areas. They could go four degrees in any direction. Go ahead. A PARTICIPANT: You only took the effort that existed within a closed area in that time frame and moved it within that time frame outside the area? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Correct. A PARTICIPANT: You did not look at the fact that maybe in the next month effort that had been suspended during one month would be back in the same place or there would be an increase in effort the next month? You didn't do that? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We didn't do that. A PARTICIPANT: Okay. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We could. And going into Nelson's point, no, we did not take into account that some of the people in the middle of SWO-3 wouldn't be able to move out. Does everybody understand how these areas work? MR. BEIDEMAN: A good point was just brought up to me that I tried to bring up before. If you close this entire area, due to the nature of those boats that are basically coastal fleet boats, there isn't one boat that I know of -- (End of Tape 1, Side A.) MR. BEIDEMAN: -- would have been in that area that would have the capability of fishing outside of that area. So you can eliminate the effort. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Along with looking at these areas for swordfish, I took what I had from the Blue Water proposal. I'm not going to go over their proposal. I just tried to take their area, or as close their area that I could, and I did the same sort of analyses. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: You should have a copy of this somewhere. A PARTICIPANT: But we don't seem to have (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Karyl, just to point out to folks without getting into the proposal, these blocks are a little bit different than what the actual proposal is, okay. On the BWFA-1, the south-southwest corner is a tiny bit different and the BWFA-2, that's a one and a half by one degree that goes to 87.30, not 87. You know, this is plenty for visual. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: So these are pretty close approximations. So in the SWO package or somewhere in the package you should have the analyses for all of these blocks, and all of these were sorted by swordfish discard per unit effort. A PARTICIPANT: I don't see a discard -- I don't see an analysis based on these -- these. Do you have one? A PARTICIPANT: These? I don't (inaudible). A PARTICIPANT: Karyl, do we have the analysis and changes in landings or discards by species for the Blue Water? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: They should be in -- we made photocopies of them. A PARTICIPANT: Does anybody have them? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: I've got that but we don't have the -- A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: No, it would come from us. It wouldn't come from Nelson. (Inaudible.) Go ahead. MR. CLAVERIE: Karyl, are all of these analyses strictly for '96 - '97? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All of these are just for '96 and '97, yes. MR. CLAVERIE: Do you have the information for more years than that? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We could do more years. The reason we didn't is because of the season. It changed in '95 and we wanted to make sure that we had equivalent effort to look at, and '96 and '97 were very similar. MR. CLAVERIE: Well, I can't speak for the east coast but in the Gulf it can vary substantially from year to year, particularly the billfish situation. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. I did look at '96 and '97 and they were pretty much the same. MR. CLAVERIE: No, but if you go back to as far back as you can go, you'll find that the location of billfish can vary substantially from year to year. It depends on currents and swirls, and those change from year to year. Where the fish are this year may not be where they are at all next year. A PARTICIPANT: I presume on the Blue Water graph, the one that says BWFA-1, that the last point that isn't numbered is October. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Again, without getting into the proposal much, this would just be from the closure of the areas. This would not be the additional benefits accrued by eliminating the effort through buyout. MS. LENT: Just a comment to that effect. Even though that effort, the vessels that are bought out wouldn't be in the fishery any more, if we assume that we're still going to be harvesting our full swordfish quota, we would still have some sets being made over and above -- you know, some of those sets would be replaced and so some assumptions are made to that effect. A PARTICIPANT: Now, and this was just -- I'm assuming, and please tell me if I'm wrong-- this was just a static analysis looking at snapshots in time. You didn't, for instance, the cumulative discards in one year did not then roll in to increase availability, increase size in fish the following year and -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Just static snapshots of points in time. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Okay, so it doesn't model -- you're not trying to model shifts in the population which might be affected by changes in discards or -- okay. MS. LENT: Again, Russ, I would invite everybody, not just you, to take a look at what the yields are right now for swordfish and what the yields could be if we reduce these dead discards relative to replacement yield. Where does it get us relative to that? That's what these number can help you with. We don't have a dynamic model but I think we've got the most useful information we've had to date that helps us figure out what's the best way to do a time/area closure. There's a lot more analysis we can do, but this is pretty good. A PARTICIPANT: To that, Rebecca, my point would be that when you're looking at some of these static snapshots that you see has a fairly substantial reduction in discards of undersized swordfish and also reductions in total harvest, that in the long term it's likely that if the discard reductions are three or four times what the short-term reductions in harvest are from the snapshot, in the long terms you're likely to see increases in harvest or accumulation of your quota in a quicker time period because what you're saving in the discards is going to be growing and creating higher abundances and higher densities of larger-size fish in subsequent years. MR. BEIDEMAN: Only on 9 percent. A PARTICIPANT: Just to confirm, the BWFA-1 assumes no displaced effort because it assumes a buyout; is that right? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: No, (inaudible). A PARTICIPANT: It does? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It keeps turning off on me. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: This does not assume a buyout. None of these analyses do. It always assumes displaced effort. A PARTICIPANT: It seems like in the Blue Water -- and it's not that great a difference in geographical area -- October goes from first to last. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I'm not sure if that is October. It would make sense that it is. I would have to go back and check. It might have just been a mistake on my part when I was filling in which blocks it's supposed to graph. It might have been October should be at the first and all the numbers should be moved down. A PARTICIPANT: I think that's probably closer to right. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That would make sense, but one of the missing months is October. A PARTICIPANT: Could I clarify the comment you just made? I'm pleased to see there is no linkage here with a buyout, but even if an improper linkage had been put here you could not assume no effort. As Rebecca just clarified, the catch, the landings, are going to remain the same unless we change our law; therefore, the boats that are fishing outside this area are going to increase their effort. So I don't understand why you said because you did not assume a buyout you therefore displaced effort. Even if you had assumed a buyout, you would have to displace effort. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: We didn't assume a buyout. Everything is just displaced effort. If we were assuming a buyout we might be able to try to figure out some way to reduce effort based on those boats leaving the fishery. We might be able to make some assumptions about that. A PARTICIPANT: But my point is you couldn't make that assumption because you still have to land the quota. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: You would still land the quota but not necessarily in that area. A PARTICIPANT: No, but my point is there would be increased effort outside the area that is displacement. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: It would still have displacement, yes. I'm just saying it would be a different displacement. MS. LENT: What Karyl is saying, and this is an important point, that with a buyout you would have a number of vessels, probably those vessels that would be most affected by that time/area closure would disappear, but the vessels that remained in the fleet would be making all the sets necessary to reach a swordfish quota, we give them a reasonable opportunity, et cetera. Would it be the exact same number of sets? Would it be more sets? Would it be less sets? That's an important question we need to discuss. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Go ahead, Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Yeah, a couple of things. In response to Rebecca, at least they would be in bigger swordfish areas. I hope that the information from Jean Kramer that, you know, we need gets copied in time. If not, I have a copy but just one copy. I think it's a little bit unfair to characterize, you know, this information as the Blue Water proposal because -- MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I just labeled it that because that's what areas I used. MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay. But as an explanation to everyone because, in reality, the Blue Water proposal not only has the benefit of closing the areas which reaches 47.4 percent of the swordfish discards within the U.S. EEZ, but it also has the benefits of eliminating those boats that volunteer for the buyout, which will make that 47.4 percent rise. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right, right. I'm sorry if I made that unclear. I did not mean to point out that this is the Blue Water proposal. These are just the areas that I used based on what your proposal is. These are the same analyses as everything else. They're just labeled differently because they were your areas. MS. LENT: But for purposes of discussion, I think it's useful to say what if we conducted the same analyses on the areas that Blue Water has proposed for their buyout. Obviously, it's not the same result because you folks are talking about -- MR. BEIDEMAN: And I've also mis-spoken because it really is no longer a Blue Water proposal. It's a Senator Breaux's proposal. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Okay. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Let me just suggest that we let Karyl continue the presentation of the analyses, then Karyl can sit here at the front table. Then Jack Dunnigan, our moderator, has made it. Thank you, Jack. Jack can moderate the discussion. We don't want Karyl standing on her feet too long. As you can see, there is a new cohort on the way. Thanks, Karyl. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: All right, I'll go on with the billfish for those of you who are anxious, billfish. And during the discussion we can talk more about the other areas for swordfish. For some reason, this one is very curved. This is all based very similar to the swordfish, only we're now in the Gulf of Mexico. Billfish-1 includes Billfish-1 and Billfish-4, so it's the big area from 22 up to the coast and from 92 over to the coast. And, yes, that probably incorporates some of Mexico's EEZ. Billfish-3 is the smallest area going from 24 to the coast and 92 to the coast. Billfish-2 gets bigger. It incorporates 1, 4, and 5. Five goes over a little bit smaller than Billfish-2 so it incorporates 4 and 5, and then you just keep increasing out so you get almost up to Florida. Very large areas. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Bill-6 is the top three, yes. And Bill-3 is that entire block. Now, when we're going over these graphs, remember that we're not including the fact that we might be closing some of these areas on the east coast of Florida. These are just closing these areas, not a combination of these areas and Florida, so we're not including the billfish discards so we might get from those SWO areas. Did that make sense or did I confuse anybody? Go ahead. A PARTICIPANT: Would we be right in assuming that though they are -- if you are looking at both sets of data they would not be additive because of the chance of -- I mean, if you just look at that analysis you've got effort coming over here and back and forth? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. A PARTICIPANT: So if you got 5 percent on one and 6 percent on the other, we wouldn't be saying there is 11 percent if you did them both. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: That's correct. I'll spend the discussion on the one that at this point we tend to like the best, which is Bill-4. And I don't think on this one you really need to close the entire, or mostly the entire year as we did on SWO. But if we closed 7, 8, and 9, maybe January, you have almost a 7 percent, or around about a 7 percent decrease in sailfish and in blue marlin and in white marlin. Remember, this is what these areas are supposed to be helping. For those you have very little impact, almost zero percent, on anything else if you close those areas, or this area, which is why we happen to like this one the best. For those of you want to know, I sorted these months by white marlin discard per unit effort. I just chose a billfish. White marlin happened to be the hardest one to get to fit. A PARTICIPANT: Karyl, I have a question. Would it be a correct way to interpret this then is that you would have the same impact if you closed it just in July as you would the rest of the year, basically? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Basically, yeah, for the sailfish if you close the entire year or just in July. A PARTICIPANT: Well, you've almost got the same thing for every species. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: Right. A PARTICIPANT: Because if for one month you'd have the same impact you would if you closed it the whole year. MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: If there aren't any other questions, we can let Jack moderate and have a discussion over these areas. A PARTICIPANT: Do you have a preferred option in terms of the duration of the billfish closed area? MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: I think what we were looking at is July, August, and September. And we can always put up any of these overheads if you guys want to see them. A PARTICIPANT: I have (inaudible) for example, hot spots (inaudible). MS. BREWSTER-GEISZ: No. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: We started with the hot spots as identified in previous studies, but if you have some hot spot ideas we're listening. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) look at some (inaudible). MR. DUNNIGAN: Okay, thank you. I apologize for being late. Thank you, US Airways, and it's nice to be here. It's about 2:20. We'd like to maybe take not more than ten minutes to continue on this subject and then we'd like to be able to move to some other presentations this afternoon that we're going to have on this question of time/area closures. We will then be coming back to a more substantive discussion of how you feel about all of this either after those proposals or, if we run out of time this afternoon we'll end up doing that tomorrow morning. But we could take a couple of more comments right now or more clarifications if you have further questions for what Karyl did. The other thing is about the record. Everybody, please make sure you use the mikes and make sure you give us your name before you start so that we can have a nice, clean record when this gets put together. Russell Nelson was first and then Nelson Beideman and then David Wilmot. Russell. MR. NELSON: Me nombre es Russell Nelson. Rebecca. MR. DUNNIGAN: Rebecca. MR. NELSON: This is not for Karyl. This is for you. Karyl just gave us what you said we should -- a preferred alternative in terms of billfish reduction. So implicit in picking a preferred alternative, I guess you all have at a policy level established some goal that you're trying to get. The Billfish Advisory Panel asked that we look at reductions in bi-catch that would get us at least a 25 percent reduction in mortality, bi-catch induced mortality. What goal have you all selected as the policy goal to base your selection of a preferred alternative on? MR. DUNNIGAN: Rebecca. MS. LENT: There is no specific number. What we are trying to do is balance a reduction in discards of billfish and juvenile swordfish with the impacts on the directed fishery, balance it relative to other issues in managing these fisheries. I would remind you also, Russ, to add the two numbers. When we close the swordfish area we save some billfish as well. You can add the two to see what the effect is. But no, Russ, we don't have a number. If this panel wants to discuss it some more in the joint panel and the pros and the cons, in some cases we could go higher but we might increase dead discards of large coastal sharks. We need to hear from you about the trade-offs. MR. NELSON: I didn't mean to get you all testy, Rebecca. I was just wondering, when you decided that you selected proposals, I mean, what is the trade- off? What is the goal? What is the balance? Is there some quantitative goal that you set or is it just all - - you know, is it -- I mean, what's the basis to say we like this one? That's all. MS. LENT: Again, I can't give you a hard number. And I'm not testy. I just have a sore throat, Russ. It's why I have this raspy voice. But it's looking at preliminary analyses, looking at putting these graphs all in front of us and saying if we had to choose between just these six or just these four, which one looks most promising in terms of the trade-off and the side effects, and which ones might not be as preferable. You might find that we have more options we need to look at or you might find that we need to change the assumptions that we used to come up with these results. The whole picture could change if we say, you know, no, it's going to be boats just going north or just going south. So I can't give you any specific formula, Russ. I wish I could. And if you have a specific formula for balancing all these different things, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water Fishermen's Association. What I'm passing out, Jack, might make things a tiny bit clearer. What we did was we took the information from Goodyear and we broke it into one-degree squares of those 12, you know, squares in the Gulf, and we took the years '92 to '97 and averaged it into annual average by species in those one-degree squares. And that's being passed around. At some point if people have questions I can explain the, you know, headings, et cetera. MR. DUNNIGAN: David Wilmot. MR. WILMOT: Russ Nelson asked the very questions that I was most concerned about. I will follow up with one small addition. Rebecca, I understand your answer and you don't have a quantitative answer that I would certainly like to see; however, can I take from what you said that the variables that you're balancing have equal weight, or could you in a qualitative way at least rank what is most important to HMS, to you, in conserving these fish and reaching the objectives of the FMP? MR. DUNNIGAN: Rebecca. MS. LENT: I think the overarching objective, as we noted earlier in the meeting, is reducing bi- catch of juvenile swordfish and billfish. We can't just blindly go forth and take the maximum area and the maximum amount. We have to consider the side effects, not just the effects on the fishermen but the effects on large coastal shark discards and the effects on turtles and the effects on a lot of other things. So I don't have an equal weight but I would say that our number one goal as we went through these numbers was swordfish dead discards and billfish discards. MR. DUNNIGAN: David, go ahead. MR. WILMOT: Okay, thank you for that. And again, I don't mean to imply what might have been what you had in mind here, but if I just glance down and look at blue marlin and I put the two together, we've actually lost a few more blue marlin than we started with with these two closed areas. So I hope you can understand the difficulty of trying to understand. You tell me the number one priority is to reduce the discards of more than one species, I admit, yet when I look at a key species I see more blue marlin will be discarded. I think you can imagine that would cause some pause for me in trying to understand where exactly we're going. MR. DUNNIGAN: Steve Loga. MR. LOGA: A question for Rebecca. Rebecca, have we looked at other alternatives besides the closed area in the Gulf? For instance, I was looking at the observer log book data today and it shows somewhat that possibly we can reduce the catch of billfish by four or five times just by simply switching from live bait back to dead bait before we look at these, because these areas obviously affect me greatly on that. Have we looked at those other ideas also? MR. DUNNIGAN: Rebecca. MS. LENT: That's a very good point, Steve, and I hope we could get some input from the advisory panel. We obviously need the science that proves to us that yes, indeed, with live bait versus dead bait, with circle hooks versus j-hooks, we can have different mortality rates. So this meeting obviously is focused on time/area closure. Anything we can do with gear types that would mitigate the need for time/area closures we'd love to hear about, we'd love to do it. It's a good point. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water. Rebecca, what Steve is referring to is today we still have an ongoing contract with, you know, John as far as the review of a grant contract. One of the things that, you know, is part of that is trying to see if there is anything that is, you know, a red flag on live versus dead, you know, bait in the Gulf of Mexico area. An observed subset that he showed us today to review was like a 47-set subset where they had marked tended, and it looks as if you both have live bait and you tend the line that, as Steve said, there is a three to five times on billfish interactions and it's only for a gain of 2 to 3 yellowfin tuna directed species per trip. So I would encourage HMS please get up with Dr. Hoey (phonetic). You know, when that information is more developed it would sure be a good thing for this group to see. MS. LENT: Thanks, Nelson. We'll check. We did invite Dr. Hoey but he wasn't able to come today. MR. DUNNIGAN: Ellen Peel. MS. PEEL: I just wanted to clarify. Nelson, you were saying that with the live bait that the increase in the marlin was higher? MR. BEIDEMAN: With live bait and tending the line, the increase -- I can't remember the exact but it went from like .6 on white marlin to like 3, four or five times higher, .6 per set to 3 per set. MS. PEEL: Right. An increase in the interaction and hookup with billfish with live bait? MR. BEIDEMAN: Yes. MS. PEEL: Okay, that's what we're saying also. MR. BEIDEMAN: Yes. MR. DUNNIGAN: Okay, John Wingard and then Pete Jensen. MR. WINGARD: Has there been a socioeconomic analysis done in conjunction with this because, as you said, there is a number of trade-offs going on here and suggestions made, changing bait, changing hook types. It seems that without some idea of the impact these are also having not only on the fish but the fishermen, we may be getting some very marginal gains in the biology with major losses, say, on the socioeconomic side. So I think that's a critical component that could be added in to help more fully evaluate the total trade-offs we are talking about. MS. LENT: Just to respond to that, that's a very good point, John. In fact, we've got a partial look at some of the gross output economic effects because we know what happens to their catch of their target species. If it's going down, then obviously their gross revenues are going down. If they're having to fish farther out, obviously their fishing costs are going up. If we're affecting communities in these large areas that could be closed for a long amount of time, then obviously we're having social effects. That's a very important point that we need to hear about. MR. DUNNIGAN: Pete Jensen. MR. JENSEN: I'm still curious about one thing on swordfish and maybe I missed it. If we have an annual quota in your analysis, why does the catch of swordfish go down? Don't we presume that we're still going to catch the quota no matter what you do, or are you simply suggesting that you're going to transfer the catch from those people that move out to somebody that's somewhere else? Shouldn't that line be flat? MS. LENT: Yeah, that's a good point. What we could do is add sets until we reach the quota, then we get back to status quo. But, in fact, when we're displacing people out we're putting them in areas where they might be catching less of the target catch. They're fishing where they find it most profitable, and that makes sense. So by displacing the effort, we're making the decision for a fishermen I'm going to go here and make ten sets here where, in fact, on that trip maybe would have made another two sets because he didn't quite have enough swordfish for his trip. So that's a good point, Pete. MR. DUNNIGAN: Okay, thank you. Any last questions just for clarification, facts on Karyl's presentation? (No response.) MR. DUNNIGAN: All right, let's move ahead. We have a couple of more presentations that we're going to be doing this afternoon for you and for the next one or set of them I'm going to ask Nelson Beideman to introduce that. Go ahead, Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water Fishermen's Association. I really don't want to get too much into introducing the proposal. John Flynn, legislative staff from Senator Breaux's office and Glen Delaney, our U.S. ICCAT commercial commissioner will be doing that. I would like to make a couple of more general remarks about the reasons that the industry has come forward, you know, with initiatives and proposals of this nature. Would that be proper now or after, Rebecca? MS. LENT: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Well, if I could. And, Rebecca, you might be interested in this. We have reflected on this many, many, times but if was a very focused reflection this past week in Spain. We were staying at a hotel where the toreadors from the bullfights were staying, and each evening the locals would line up chairs and watch the bullfights just like, you know, we do here for football and baseball. The difference of cultures and the thought of going to a bullfight with a sign saying, "Save Baby Tunas," it just doesn't work over there. And the realization that we are never going to get Europeans to discard any fish as an incentive to protect small swordfish or tunas or what have you. So we're really -- one of the big incentives behind the industry looking harder at what is already accomplished on reducing small swordfish catches is how do we find a way of moving the international community to further protect small fish? Because it's not going to be through minimal sizes. Thank you. And who first? John? You can't even read Jean's stuff, you know. MS. LENT: This is the printout we got on e-mail. We tried to enlargen it. MR. BEIDEMAN: Okay. I have regular size if you want. MS. LENT: We'll send somebody over to copy it. MR. CLAVERIE: Nelson, you got it wrong. You'd say, "Save the Baby Bulls so they can grow up to fight." MR. DUNNIGAN: You know, that was Mr. Claverie. Just to make sure the record will reflect that. MR. BEIDEMAN: It's kind of funny when you think about it though, Mau. It's an unbelievable difference of cultures. MR. FLYNN: Before you go ahead, like any good Coast Guard guy, I'm the Coast Guard person in Senator Breaux's office but I also staff all fisheries issues and maritime issues. I've been there for about a year. I have charts that it doesn't look like I'll need because there is an overhead set to go. But I'm not here today as John Flynn. I'm here as Senator Breaux to discuss something that took place in our office. And Nelson kind of laid the groundwork just a little bit by mentioning ICCAT. This past November in ICCAT went over just kind of sidebar discussions on ways of addressing the swordfish issue, a way of addressing the bi-catch with billfish and other species. And that kind of followed over to when we got home just reviewing the FMP draft process. And any other congressional folks that are here, I mean, our office was virtually flooded with valid concerns of the bi-catch issue and problem. And at that time we said what can we do? What can we do about this? And we remembered back to discussions we had at ICCAT, and from there basically I talked to Senator Breaux about it. And as everybody knows, he's been around for a long time. He's a Commerce Committee and Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries and he's known as kind of the deal maker, to so speak, as far as bringing parties together. So that's what we did. That's basically what we're trying to do. And then in our office actually was on -- you know, my last name and I'm an Irishman so I picked St. Patrick's Day of all times to call the meeting. Some people say it was a bad time to do it, but on basically March 17th we called together Rawley Smitten (phonetic) not as Rawley Smitten but basically director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, Glen Delaney representing Blue Water, Senator Breaux was in attendance. Bob Hayes from the Billfish Foundation and Peter Hill from Legislative Affairs. And the proposal that we discussed is one that you have already seen and I won't spend a lot of time on it, but basically starting from North Carolina to the Florida straits then another area over Desoto Canyon and the Gulf. And honestly I'll stay close to the mike. What I'm talking about is swordfish. I'll get into other species here in just a second, but this was a swordfish proposal. There was some confusion, just to kind of air it right now, confusion between swordfish and yellowfin tuna, but what I'm talking about now is swordfish. The swordfish and billfish issue. These areas -- and I'm not a scientist. I have a science background. I'm not a scientist. These areas, as everybody especially in this audience or this panel knows, there are grounds and hot spots for juvenile swordfish and also spots for billfish. So as far as coming together to address a way of taking care of the issue, taking care of the problem, those in attendance looked at the proposal, and while we were there Senator Breaux said, "Is this something that works for everybody?" And then while we were in the room, once again, you know, the parties were represented. We all agreed to work together on it. In turn, Senator Breaux said, and this is a quote from him. He goes, "If this is something that's doable, something that everybody is agreeing to in this room and agreeing to work on in the future," he goes, "I'll champion the cause." Those were his words: "I'll champion the cause." So with that, and some of the differences between this proposal and some of the other things that have been discussed -- and I might add that this is very close to SWO-3. I think it's SWO-3. See, I read your charts. Very close to SWO-3. The only -- not the only difference. Some minor differences in geographic boundaries, but in other differences that this proposal includes a buyback. It includes a buyback. And if I get off base I know Glen Delaney will get me back on, but basically this buyback would impact approximately 47 vessels, 47 or 48 vessels. I think that's accurate. Now, the buyback is estimated to cost approximately $15 million; 7 1/2 would come from the industry and 7 1/2 would come from the United States during appropriations, basically Title XI loan guarantee. Before anybody asks, we do have a draft bill. There is a draft bill. One of the key six sections that's missing from the bill is data. We need data to put into it. Three months ago data was requested. The data we received was helpful but it was incomplete. In turn, I have a copy of a letter that Senator Breaux sent to Penny Dalton. It's here if anybody wants to see it, but basically the letter that went back to Penny reminded Penny of the commitment, was the word, the commitment that had been made by Penny's predecessor, Rawley Smitten, to work on this proposal and then also requested the data. The data is very important to this bill because without the data for the bill we can not go through the entire compensation formula for what would be a fair and equitable buyback to those longliners or those fishermen impacted, drastically impacted, by being forced out of the fishery through this time/area closure. Some of the concern that is in our office right now is that assurances or commitments were made to Senator Breaux and I have to say, I mean, he was quite surprised to learn that the AP process was underway and that we were looking at a proposed rule or a ruling process, and that's another reason that the letter went to Penny Dalton basically kind of reaffirming the fact that commitments had been made to work on this proposal that includes a buyback. So I have to go on the record in saying that, so I mean -- let me just kind of regroup here. Some of the other points that I wanted to make is this is not just at the Penny Dalton or the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service level. Dr. Baker and Terry Garcia were in Senator Breaux's office about two weeks ago. It was mentioned to them by me in Senator Breaux's office and again by Senator Breaux, commitments were raised by both individuals at that time that this was something very much worth pursuing, especially with the buyback option. I don't have a copy of the article but earlier this week, I forget what publication it was but Dr. -- not Dr. Baker but Terry Garcia was quoted as saying that time/area closures and buybacks were the way to go with the Fishery Service. I don't have the article but I've seen it two or three times. What else can I say? I'm not trying to slam anybody. I'm just trying to bring everything up that has been committed so you know that everybody is trying to work together on this but, at the same time, commitments were made, promises have been made, and it seems like we're going down parallel tracks. So Senator Breaux asked me to come here today basically to repeat and reaffirm what was discussed and what was committed to, and then at the same time to say that with a ruling process or the proposed rule, what is not included in there. For example, I mean, SWO-3 looks exactly like the area or very close to it, but the one element missing is the buyback. So the buyback is not included and that's something that we'll address legislatively. I think that's pretty fair to say that. So I've been talking about swordfish and the bi-catch of billfish. Another area that Senator Breaux is also working on -- in fact, he had breakfast in New Orleans with Gary Schweist (phonetic) and the Billfish Foundation. And one of the concerns that was made was this area in the Gulf. It needs to be a more open area. The area in the Gulf that I'm talking about is swordfish. I know there are some other areas that individuals say that there are swordfish and billfish bi-catch in there, but I'm talking about swordfish. The other areas that we continue to work on -- and, in fact, I know that Bob Hayes and Ellen Peel met with Steve Loga from Tuna Fresh to discuss the yellowfin tuna issue. So I say that because I'm not -- I guess I'm a little sensitive right now because this is the area that we agreed to in principle and that partes that were there agreed to; at the same time, we're not ruling out looking at other areas, but the area that I'm looking at is swordfish. Hopefully in here everybody understands that because every time I talk to my boss and people in the office I have to make sure that they understand they are two different issues but that's, you know, one issue. The one we're working on right now is swordfish and the bi-catch of billfish is important but we're not ruling out continuing to work with other parties as long as it's mutually agreeable without, you know, kind of bashing or slashing either side to address that. I kind of went on and on about that. You know, I'm looking directly at Bob. Is that pretty much what we've -- MR. HAYES: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Use the microphone. MR. HAYES: Oh, yeah. I'm Bob Hayes. You know, I think it's a fair assessment that, you know, on my view of the swordfish industry here there's a couple things. This is the first day I've ever seen this NMFS data so that gives me some pause for reflection. But notwithstanding that, you know, on the swordfish industry to essentially come forward and say we're going to close a substantial portion of the EEZ because we've got a small swordfish problem and we know that there will be some economic dislocation of that and I believe what they've decided is that they're going to buy themselves out with the assistance of some federal funds. You know, I think that's a positive thing and I don't think that that's something we ought to beat up the swordfish industry for. I think I said at the time and I've said for some time, we've got a problem, a bi-catch problem in the Gulf which is not a swordfish problem. It is a yellowfin tuna problem. And we've been talking to the yellowfin tuna folks about that problem and we're trying to see if we can pull something together. And I think that's a fair assessment of where we are. MR. FLYNN: I think so, too. I mean, if anybody has any questions about the mechanics of the bill I'd be happy to address those. One of the other points that I did not make is that with the buyback 50 percent would come from Title XI loan guarantees and there would be -- correct me if I'm wrong -- but a 5 cent per pound dressed weight assessed at the dealer level. We had a trade attorney in my office review that for GATT problems or implications. He was one of the crafters of GATT. He didn't see problems with it. But just to make sure that we're good and on par with everything, we requested USTR to visit Senator Breaux's office next week and they're going to do that. So I know there were some interim memos within NMFS that said that there might be a problem but, take my word for it, next week we'll meet on that. Glen, what did I miss? MR. DELANEY: Well, the (inaudible). MS. LENT: (Inaudible.) And we've received that letter and we're in the process of evaluating it and preparing a response. Let me just say that what I expected John to talk about here today was not that letter. I expected you to focus more on the actual legislation, the mechanics, you know, the fact that importers would be taxed, and how would you pay -- which vessels you'd select and what's the basis and how much you're going to pay each boat and the price and that kind of thing. So we'll take that as a comment from the floor that there's concern about -- you know, the same concerns that are raised by Breaux. But let's focus on the time/area closure aspects of this proposal. And I think one of the appealing things about the buyout which we all embrace, we would love to have a buyout, is that it helps minimize the economic effects of a buyout. And if we go with something that's, you know, similar to Blue Water or something along that seaboard, obviously we're impacting a lot of communities. And that's what's appealing and we would love to embrace a buyback and we hope that this works out. Thanks. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Sure. Okay, I have about 20 or 25 copies of it in my brief case as well. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: Sure. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: No, I think it would be helpful because if I was on the panel I'd be asking, well, where are all the specifics of the proposal that's being made? The major difference is buyout. MR. DUNNIGAN: Why don't you just walk through the summary? MR. BEIDEMAN: Rebecca, at some point there are, you know, comments that I would like to make relative to, you know, the possible two tracks as far as the ramifications of it in November. MS. LENT: We have at least one more AP member who wants to make a presentation and so we'll try and make sure we have enough time for that before we break at 3:45. We've got another hour. MR. HAYES: Can I make one comment, if I could? Bob Hayes. MR. DUNNIGAN: State your name first. MR. HAYES: Bob Hayes. I'm sorry. I think an outline of this proposal and a discussion of it I think is useful, and I would like to point out -- and I think Nelson would agree with this -- you know, the work that the National Marine Fisheries Service has done in order to push this proposal to the point that it's pushed it is not inconsistent, I do not believe, with a legislative approach which clearly is going to require some -- if you're going to have a buyout you're going to have to have some kind of legislation. I don't view them as inconsistent. And I think the fact that you can involve larger communities with more data and more analysis will be useful with respect to identifications of the positive impacts of your proposal and identification of maybe some other areas that could possibly be fixed as well. So, I mean, I see this is a disclosure thing, as an analysis thing, and as something that is a pretty positive effort on behalf of the Fisheries Service. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson Beideman. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water. I would agree with what Bob is saying as far as, you know, the analysis, et cetera, but I would like to speak to at the proper time is we've got two possible different scenarios that are setting up here. One possible scenario is that we go into the international forum with an industry initiative, government cooperation, sport fish, recreational fishery, commercial, all working together. We present this strong concept into the international forum and try to move forward across all species with small fish protection. The other scenario is we have a massive closed area without compensation that's in court. We go to our foreign compadres in the international arena and ask them for money to help us with the legal fees. MS. LENT: This is something that we discussed while we were in Spain with Miriam and Nelson. And Nelson said -- I mean, not Nelson -- Miriam said, "Nelson, we're your best friends on this." And the reason is the following: If indeed we go forth with a proposed rule and we analyze different options for time/area closures, one of the things we have to look at under a reg flex of course is mitigating measures. And one great mitigating measure for a time/area closure is a buyout, and the analyses that we do are going to clearly show that we've greatly minimized the economic effects and we do better under National Standard Eight and under everything in the red flag if we have a buyout. It looks great relative to the effects that we would have trying to reduce bi- catch without a buyout. So we are your best friends in this in the sense that even though we're on a parallel track, all of this would be considered. Here is one way that you can mitigate economic effects, so let's keep working it together. I think this is all for the common good. MR. BEIDEMAN: I can appreciate that, Rebecca, and boy, I hope everything you're saying is exactly the perfect world scenario that it works out to be. But I believe that later on during the public comment period you will hear from longline industry participants that have agreed upon the buyout scenario that if there is closures without compensation there will be, you know, opposition. MR. DUNNIGAN: We want to let the presentation continue. David and Russ, do you want to ask your question first or do you want to be first in line after they finish? MR. WILMOT: Well, no, I would like to ask it now because I was just wondering if we might actually get back to the agenda. I didn't realize that we were coming here today to debate buyouts. If so, we certainly have an awful lot of presenters who should be here to discuss the pros and cons of buyouts. I thought we were here to talk a little bit about time/area closures and the conservation associated with them. Very different things. I am more than happy to initiate a buyout debate here. I am perfectly capable of doing it, but I'd like an awful lot of other experts to be here as well to talk about the pros, the cons, and a lot of other issues. This was not on the agenda. I am not prepared to talk about it. I don't know if everyone else knew about it and I'm the only one who didn't, but I would like to get back to talking about time/area closures and the conservation measures, not this lovefest with economic relief discussion. MR. FLYNN: So let me talk about the time/area closure. The time/area closure includes a buyout. I'm sorry. This time/area closure -- two areas. Once again, I mentioned the difference between SWO-3 and the time/area closures identified on the over head. The time/area closure in the first area is 80,000 square miles and it's closed the entire year. The second area closed the first six months of the year is 5,400 square miles. Those are the areas based upon NMFS data and not anybody else's data. And as far as conservation benefits, you'll see on the handout that's going around -- I won't go through all the numbers but, basically, when you think about small swordfish, 8,444 small swordfish, basically a 45 percent reduction. As far as concerns, and valid concerns, from the billfish folks and billfish panel, 295 blue marlin, 148 white, 345 sail, and 25 spearfish, and anywhere from 34.2 percent reductions down to 8 percent reductions. So, I mean -- yes. A PARTICIPANT: A little bit then about some of the assumptions that were made here. This is great. This is the discussion I really would like to discuss. What was the assumption used on the movement of effort in the closed -- outside of the closed area? MR. FLYNN: Glen will help me on the science here. MR. DUNNIGAN: Glen Delaney. MR. DELANEY: Getting back to the -- that's why a buyback is fundamental to this and, you know, National Standard Nine to minimize bi-catch is an important national standard but it's one of many and the one right before it also requires equal attention when we're doing something to conserve our resources, which is to consider the adverse economic impacts on people. The Magnuson Act is fish -- I know it's hard to say -- and people. All together. And people. So that's the point. It's fundamental to this proposal. And to answer your question, there is no displacement of effort if you -- I mean, the effort is displaced out of the fishery. Through a buyback the vessels are removed. That effort ceases to exist so there is no assumption that effort is going to be displaced within that community of 47 vessels elsewhere. Will harvest continue for a longer period of time? Will the catch quota be reached for swordfish? Probably by vessels fishing elsewhere on larger fish. That's the point is to catch larger fish and stop fishing where there are smaller fish. MR. WILMOT: So just to clarify -- David Wilmot. The assumption was made that if the one third part of the quota that was caught in the closed area is indeed still caught outside the closed area that there would be zero small swordfish killed? That's who one would accomplish a 45 percent reduction? Is that correct? Zero additional small swordfish would be caught? MR. DELANEY: I can't assume, and neither can you or anyone in this room, and that's why I'm surprised by the NMFS proposal as to what displaced effort or -- displaced effort is not maybe the correct term because it implies that these vessels are going to move somewhere. But the catches are going to increase somewhere else. MR. WILMOT: Right, sure. MR. DELANEY: I have an absolutely no idea. No one in this room does, so it's a little difficult to make that assumption. All we can say is that within this zone this many fish would no longer be caught. MR. WILMOT: But that's not what it says. MR. DELANEY: That's what we can say. MR. WILMOT: You could say that, but that's not what it says. It says that that's the percent reduction in the EEZ. That's a very different statement. By not catching 8,444 swordfish, that would constitute a 45 percent reduction in the small swordfish catch within the EEZ, without being able to assume what it is that your point is. MR. DELANEY: I know exactly what you're saying, David, but no one, including yourself, could ever make an assumption like that, could they? MR. WILMOT: Well, actually, there are a quite a few data that would allow you to make a number of assumptions. One could simply look at the discard rate in the other areas outside the closed area, and one can accurately make a number of assumptions from that. MR. DELANEY: Maybe more swordfish will be caught off the Grand Banks. MR. WILMOT: Making an assumption above zero in the rest of the EEZ where the fishing will occur, oh, yeah, that could be justified. MR. DELANEY: Well, that's your opinion. MR. DUNNIGAN: Do you have more that you want to present or do you want to just get into the discussion? MR. DELANEY: I think he just answered a question. MR. DUNNIGAN: Okay, good. We have Russ Dunn, Mau Claverie, Russ Nelson. MR. DUNN: I think David covered a lot of what I had. The other questions went more toward, I guess, the -- and my understanding or qualification was 5 percent income, more than a 5 percent change in income is significant and, therefore, they would be eligible for a buyout. Is that still correct, if your income is affected by more than 5 percent, or is that -- the eligibility -- MR. DELANEY: I don't have a copy of the draft in front of me but I'll be glad to get it if you look. But it defines eligibility and what an eligible vessel would be, based on the performance. Nelson, do you have in front of you the eligibility definition? The question was what constitutes eligibility in terms of buyback and I don't have that piece of paper in front of me. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water. The first eligibility point was that 50 percent of a vessel's sets in any of the last six years up to '97 would have had to have been in these closed -- proposed closed areas. Another eligibility point is to make sure that these are substantial vessels. We needed some cutoff. We said at least 25 sets in that qualifying year from that vessel. Okay. And also that they would have to be under the limited access program. That was assumed. Does that answer it? MR. DUNN: So there isn't a financial eligibility criteria? MR. BEIDEMAN: Well, we started with we wanted 75 percent of their income to be through pelagic longlining and what we discovered is that we would have to take a whole nother step of, you know, to get that information through their tax returns and what not, and at least at that point we were unwilling to prolong the process for that information. We felt we could get at it, especially with Jean's advice. We wanted the substantial boats and between the 50 percent of sets and the at least 25 sets in a year that we were indeed getting that. Another thing I would like to reflect on is that to the extent that these boats volunteer and to the extent that, you know, they may when we eliminate their effort we're not only eliminating their effort from within the zone; we're also eliminating their effort year round so there could be additional benefits in that respect. MR. DUNN: So then my understanding is then that there is no link, financial link, of an eligibility criteria. MR. BEIDEMAN: No. MR. DELANEY: A further answer to that. One of the reasons why we still are very much interested in getting the data out the National Marine Fishery Service regarding the particular catch histories of these specific 47 vessels is to further analyze what were the catch histories and therefore what -- (End of Tape 1, Side B.) MR. DELANEY: -- have that information. So the type of analysis that you're talking about can't be done until we have the actual catch histories of those specific 47 vessels. Once we have that, it may, you know, new ideas or new approaches may develop when we see what the distribution of catch histories were over those fisheries and a more close linkage between what is it that these people are being asked to give up, basically, relative to how much compensation would be appropriate. That linkage will become a lot more clear once we have that data. Is that helpful? MR. DUNN: Yeah, (inaudible). MR. DUNNIGAN: Turn on your mike. MR. DUNN: Title XI loan guarantees. Can someone tell me where the funding for that comes from? Is that government money or is that money that fishermen have put away? My question goes to is this proposal double- dipping into the federal coffers. If it's industry is paying for half but their funding is coming from Title XI and that's really a government funded program, aren't the taxpayers paying twice? But I don't know the answer to that. MR. DELANEY: Well, you almost got it. Actually, it's the federal ship financing fund is more correct, and Bob Hayes is nodding over there because he probably wrote it or something. And you can explain it better than I can, but basically it's a federal guarantee of a private sector loan to the industry, okay, which then would be distributed to those who are bought out, and then the remaining industry, whatever that principle amount plus -- would be amortized over, I think, a 30-year period with interest, whatever the standard government rate of interest is for this type of thing, and would be paid back by the industry in increments, basically just paying a debt service, through assessments on swordfish. And one thing -- I might as well go ahead and elaborate a little bit since it brought me to this point -- is, okay, what is it assessed on? And we'd like to assess it on swordfish of Atlantic origin, for obviously reasons, not on swordfish of Pacific origin. We are trying to advance the conservation of Atlantic swordfish. This is all something that comes -- basically, its origins are in ICCAT so we felt it appropriate to just restrict it to assessments on Atlantic origin swordfish. And then further, that it would be equitably assessed on swordfish of Atlantic origin caught by U.S. fishermen and caught and entered into the United States by foreign fishermen, under the theory that any swordfish that we conserve and any small swordfish that we protect in our own zone accrues to the benefit of all North Atlantic swordfishing nations because they are highly migratory species by definition. And so we share -- perhaps one way to look at it is since we have 29 percent of the North Atlantic quota, we would get 29 percent of the benefit of protecting any small swordfish within this zone and 81 percent of the benefit would go -- no, the other way around -- 79 percent of the benefit would accrue to all the other North Atlantic swordfishing nations, many of which export product into the United States. So the assessment would be on all Atlantic swordfish marketed within the United States. Is that clear? MR. DUNNIGAN: We need to -- we have the other presentations. We want to make sure we can get to it so we want to try to maybe take not more than another five minutes of questions about this one. I've got Mau Claverie, Russ Nelson. Mike Nesman (phonetic), did you want to ask a question too? Mike Nesman, Bob Spaeth and Steve Loga and Sonja, and then we're going to move ahead. And we're going to get all that done in five minutes. MR. DELANEY: I'll try to give shorter answers. MR. DUNNIGAN: Go ahead, (inaudible). MR. CLAVERIE: I'll try to ask short questions to John about the legislation. The Gulf Council has requested and Rebecca has responded to add as a criteria enhancing the catchability of the billfish for the recreational fishery in the Gulf as one of the criteria to look at for time/area closures. Of course, all the other things have to be looked at too. But this particular closure that you're talking about in the Gulf is not going to benefit billfish very much, the marlins. It's a swordfish deal. We have always thought that "longlining" is different kinds of fisheries in the Gulf, and the language in the billfish plan is carefully crafted to say that what the problem is is between the recreational fishery and the other fisheries that have a bi-catch of billfish. It didn't just say longlines. It said bi-catch of billfish. We assume that if there is a bi-catch of billfish that there is an adverse impact on the recreational fishing success as a result of that. We don't know that. What we do know from the data that's historically been gathered in the Gulf is that when there is a yellowfin longline operation going on in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer months, it does adversely impact the fishing success substantially of the recreational fishery. There are other longline fisheries in the Gulf. There is the swordfish fishery which is this closure that we're talking about, and there is the shark fishery, which I don't know if they catch any billfish. They might catch a few but not many. The bluefin tuna longline fishery which no longer goes in the Gulf impacted marlins very little because they weren't in the Gulf that time of year. So my question is could that criteria be added into your legislation or is the door closed on that? MR. FLYNN: (Inaudible.) MR. CLAVERIE: It's not there. MR. FLYNN: It's not there as a swordfish issue; however, and I'll stress -- and please everybody hear what I'm saying -- is that Senator Breaux will continue to work with -- I mean, he went on the record in saying that in New Orleans (inaudible) and others. MR. CLAVERIE: Yeah, well -- MR. FLYNN: I guess I'm looking around for a little bit of help. A PARTICIPANT: Yes, John is correct. John is correct. Senator Breaux gave us assurance, yes -- MR. FLYNN: (Inaudible) I mean the swordfish issue, the yellowfin tuna issue as well. He came back and told me that, Senator Breaux, so I don't -- but it's not in the swordfish legislation. MR. CLAVERIE: Well, quite frankly, yellowfin longline fishery is the biggie and the chances of an agreement there are much slimmer than an agreement with the swordfish fishery, I think. I'm just guessing. MR. DUNNIGAN: Russ Nelson. MR. NELSON: Thank you, Jack. Russell Nelson. I guess three real short questions. One, what is currently the value of a -- or is anticipated to be the value of the longline permit, the pelagic longline permit, the HMS permit? Two, can a permit be sold and transferred to a larger vessel? And, three, the language here says that the vessels can't be reflagged under a foreign flag or inter -- another closed U.S. fishery. What does that mean, a closed U.S. fishery? Does that mean any current fishery for which there is a permit required or entrance is limited? MR. DUNNIGAN: Glen Delaney. MR. DELANEY: I'll answer the last question because I think there's people more competent on the limited entry permits and all that. But on the issue of closed fishery, would mean a closed, limited entry fishery. If you don't have a permit, I mean, it's a statement of the obvious, Nelson, but for some people it was important to point out if you're on the Hill that they would not be able to fish in another fishery for which they did not have a permit. MR. NELSON: The legislation would not preclude them from using their vessel -- from obtaining a permit and using their vessel in another fishery? MR. DELANEY: That's correct, if such permit is available. And they may already posses such a permit. Some of these vessels are multiple permit- holding vessels and the question they have to make is do they just get out of fishing or do they -- you know, they certainly would get out of longlining fishing because of the closed area. Now, on the issue of the value of a permit -- MS. LENT: I'm not aware of any transactions that have taken place yet. If anybody from the floor would like to weigh in, you could. Of course, you can sell your permit. There is an upgrading restriction. It's in the FMP. It's well described in there. I believe it's 10 percent on tonnage, gross net and length, and it's a one-time restriction, 20 percent of horsepower. Those are all laid out in the FMP. I can find that page for you. MR. DUNNIGAN: Mike Nesman. MR. NESMAN: I'm intrigued by the first question that David asked regarding the percentage reduction and how those are calculated. Obviously, I understand Glen and your point that 45 percent of the small swordfish come from the areas that we're talking about, but I don't think it's fair to assume that no other small swordfish are going to be caught if you catch the quota in other areas. So my question would be to NMFS. You obviously have looked at some of these closed areas. How would this calculation be done to tell us what we're looking, for example, at a 45 percent reduction. Is it possible now or would it be possible, you know, tomorrow to make an estimate of what the actual reduction would be assuming you caught the quota somewhere else? MS. LENT: If you look at -- again, Karyl, conducted the same analyses as for the time/area closures that we suggested for the Blue Water area one and Blue Water area two, and that's on these graphs here. And that assumes that all that efforts gets displaced. It gets displaced outside of the Blue Water closed area. Now, it may be that there would be, in fact, fewer sets if we have a buyout and we buy out a lot of the small boats. So this assumes that every single set that's made in the closed area, it gets made in an area outside. MR. NESMAN: But you also conceivably could have more sets. MS. LENT: Depending on how many sets it takes until the fishery is shut down and -- MR. NESMAN: To catch your quota. MS. LENT: With larger fish you would expect fewer sets. MR. NESMAN: Well, they could be more random. MR. DELANEY: (Inaudible) provide a further answer to that? MR. NESMAN: Let me just finish my question and then I'll be glad to hear what you have to say. At the same time we're looking at a quota reduction so none of that is factored into this; is that correct? So this is just basically a status quo but closing the area. Thank you. MR. DUNNIGAN: Glen. MR. DELANEY: I would just like to clarify further. I believe your analysis is a percent of total U.S. landings. MS. LENT: Right. MR. DELANEY: Many landings of which occur outside the U.S. EEZ, and our presentation is based on percent of landed within the EEZ. So it's two very, very different numbers so it is not a relevant comparison to say it would be 27 percent instead of 45 percent. Okay, that's not a relevant comparison. I just want to make sure everybody understands that. One of the two would have to be normalized to either everything or just the EEZ. We thought for the purpose of this discussion since it's -- we're talking about U.S. fisheries under U.S. direct management control with our EEZ, that was the relevant thing to look at because some of our catches are dispersed in quite distant water and I don't know that the time/area closure issue is really relevant to our distant water fleet, so that's why we talked about EEZ because it's more of the coastal fleet that we're talking about. But, I mean, you can make arguments either way. It was just a basis to standardize it. But it should be known that their numbers are total and our numbers are EEZ and they're very different. MR. DUNNIGAN: Bob Spaeth. MR. SPAETH: (Inaudible.) MR. DUNNIGAN: Steve Loga. MR. LOGA: About the buyout, one of the things maybe I don't quite understand is that if 47 boats are bought out, that's a significant amount of boats that are being bought, Dave. There is still only 365 days a year. We are under our limited entry on the swordfish. How many more boats can fish? How much more fish can we actually catch? I don't think you'll see the quota even met after that 47 boats are caught. If not, it will be very close. We won't have a closure any more, but I would think it's a win-win situation for you guys and I would think you'd probably be patting us on the back. MR. DUNNIGAN: Let's keep right now to questions about the proposal, okay? Glen Delaney. MR. DELANEY: Okay, just a couple points on that. I believe there are -- and somebody correct me who knows exactly -- 202 pelagic longline permitted vessels. Is that the right number? Swordfish I'm talking about. Swordfish. MS. LENT: Direct is around 180. We'll look it up. MR. DELANEY: Okay, so we're talking about 25 to 30 percent of the swordfish longline fleet being eliminated, okay. Maybe that's a context everybody ought to chew on. And then secondly, one thing that Nelson is trying to bring out and is not quantified here, is if those 47 vessels were removed, these are 47 vessels that have 50 percent or more of their activity within this zone. Well, that means that up to 50 percent of their activity is not within this zone, okay, so there is a whole bunch more fish that will not be caught by these vessels outside the zone. Now, granted, the large fish harvest may well be met through the quota. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. DELANEY: Right. And what would be wrong with that, David, if that's the quota? I mean, is -- MR. DUNNIGAN: David. MR. WILMOT: My only response would be to a calculation of the savings that are associated with closing an area. That's what I've tried to focus all of my questions on. One must make assumptions regarding what's going to happen outside of a closed area when changes occur in a closed area. Whether one ties the boats up, whether one takes them and forces a different gear, one must make assumptions. Those assumptions here are that not a single juvenile swordfish gets killed outside the closed area. I argue that is an invalid assumption. MR. DELANEY: That's an incorrect statement. It does not assume that not a single juvenile swordfish -- it assumes that 43 percent of the -- or 55 percent will still be killed outside the zone. What you're trying to say -- MR. WILMOT: Not an additional small swordfish beyond what that fleet outside the closed areas are -- MR. DELANEY: And maybe just the answer is for you is what NMFS has presented, which is an area of swordfish three which is very close. You know, and I'm sure with a little bit of modification we could compare applies to apples and make the geographic area exactly the same, but I doubt the numbers are going to be hugely different. But not talking about the EEZ, the answer is 27 percent of total U.S. landings, correct? Is that the number somebody threw out, 27 percent? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. WILMOT: And, Glen, I agree with -- MR. DELANEY: Why is it so hard to understand? MR. WILMOT: No, no, it's not hard to understand at all. And you know what? I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it gets back to what I've been saying for years. This is why one needs a goal. If you don't know where you're trying to get, how would you know if the 27 feels good or, if one actually looks at area three, Glen, you're talking about 18 percent, an 18 percent reduction in bi-catch. Now, we may all agree that that's enough. I suspect if I'm included in the vote the answer would be no, but the point is if once again no goal here, no goal of what one is trying to accomplish. You're just picking an area. You can quantify the boats, you can quantify the area, but nobody wants to talk hard targets. It's a fatal flaw in this discussion. MR. DUNNIGAN: Sonja Fordham. MS. FORDHAM: Sonja Fordham, Center for Marine Conservation. Just to clarify Russ Nelson's question, is it true that there is nothing to prevent boats from getting compensated for their permits and then fishing in the U.S. Pacific longline fishery? MR. DUNNIGAN: Glen. MR. DELANEY: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: If these are mostly small vessels I'm not sure that it would work. I see (inaudible) waving his arms up (inaudible). A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. FORDHAM: Well, I would just suggest with our global overcapacity problems and international agreements that maybe you would look into ways that retiring the vessels as they've done in New England ground fish. MR. DELANEY: (Inaudible) don't know the situation over there so that's why I hesitate to answer your question and -- is that helpful? I mean, the spirit intent is clearly there. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson, and then let's see if we can move ahead. MR. BEIDEMAN: Yeah, for one thing, these boats in this particular coastal area would not have the ability of fishing over 200 miles offshore from California or to, you know, even reach Hawaii if they had the limited access permits that are already in place in the Pacific which, to my knowledge, none of them do. There is a couple of other things I wanted to bring up, Jack. MR. DUNNIGAN: Quickly. MR. BEIDEMAN: All right. You've been given a handout of what is Jean Kramer's analysis of this. We did not analyze this ourselves. This is Jean Kramer's analysis. And what is actually comes out to is 47.4 percent, and the only calculation or deduction that was made was the 47.4 is all swordfish discards. The 45 is undersized, small swordfish discards, taking out the chunks and shark-bit, you know, catches. And it also - - you know, these areas closures would include 24 percent of the billfish interaction reductions. And one other thing is, David, you know, there wouldn't be more sets. I've heard more sets a few times. You know, the quota is the quota. The quota is not going up. As you know, the quota is going down. There wouldn't be, you know, ultimately more sets. You know, it would be ultimately less. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. PEEL: We're talking billfish now, John, the most important fish in the sea. The Billfish Foundation, as I hope most of you know, is interested in the conservation benefits that can be derived from time and area closures that could reduce billfish bi-catch mortality. To get the data and to identify such areas and times, we asked Dr. Phil Goodyear to look at the catch data and see where the concentrations of billfish bi-catch is highest. We certainly looked at the area that the Blue Water identified on the east coast and, as they pointed out, there are benefits for billfish there also, reducing billfish bi-catch. I will say, however, for the area in the Gulf of Mexico that was identified by Blue Water, it will not help reduce billfish bi-catch at all in the Gulf of Mexico. A third point, as you will see from Dr. Goodyear's graphs -- and I think you'll find these much easier to follow than the information that NMFS put out, not that -- it's just a different method of presenting it. I think you will find it much easier to follow. We have looked at the area identified by Blue Water, but there is also a very important area -- where did John go? John, this is a sentence for you. We also looked at areas in the Gulf of Mexico in addition, and there is one very important area in Senator Breaux's back yard that would help billfish immensely by reducing billfish bi-catch. And let me add, John, that this area in the Gulf in Senator Breaux's back yard also has -- it's not just yellowfin, while that's the predominant fishery, it also is part of the swordfish fishery as well. So once we had Dr. Goodyear to assess this data, then the Billfish Foundation and CCA went and met with Senator Breaux and showed him this data. In fact, Senator Breaux was so impressed with what he saw in the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, he said, "My goodness, I was planning on going to British Virgin Islands in August to fish for billfish, but according to our own data, billfishing would be much better in Texas." And we told him it would be if, in fact, this legislation did include the Gulf of Mexico area. So what we're wanting to do is to have the area that you see Dr. Goodyear will clearly identify for you included in this legislation that is moving forward so that there is not only benefits on the east coast for swordfish and the swordfish fishery, but there are also benefits, conservation benefits, for billfish in the Gulf of Mexico. So we would like to see a combined legislative package that would include both areas because the other proposed longline closure in the Gulf is meaningless to billfish, and swordfish are included in this western area. Now, Phil is going to pull up a series of maps and charts that will show the concentrations of billfish bi-catch discards by month in different cells. This is all the catches taken by the U.S. -- reported by the U.S. longline fleet, whether they are within the EEZ or beyond. MR. GOODYEAR: (Inaudible.) MS. PEEL: What? MR. GOODYEAR: (Inaudible.) MS. PEEL: Well, it's -- okay, he's got the maps actually hidden underneath the disk. If we can figure out how to get rid of the disk. And I think what was so surprising to us and to Senator Breaux and everyone else that has looked at this -- in fact, I might even say I think Nelson from his reaction and Glen's -- was that the interaction with billfish in the western central north Gulf was much higher than most people -- I think the folks from Texas will have a hugely better fishery. In fact, from Texas clear to Pennsacola and since the fish are migrating clockwise, the benefits will come all the way down the western part of Florida all the way to Key West. So if the closure is in place, it will have a tremendous benefit, conservation benefit, for billfish. MR. DUNNIGAN: Go ahead, Phil. MS. PEEL: He's going to, Jack. MR. GOODYEAR: Slow down. MS. PEEL: Do you have a mike? MR. GOODYEAR: Yeah. What I wanted to say to start with, this data is also based on the longline log books that I got from the National Marine Fisheries. It is based on an average of all the log books from 1972 through -- excuse me, 1992 through 1997. And I want to mention that because it's important in terms of billfish because reporting has been going down and in the last two years, particularly for blue and white marlin, the reporting rate is the lowest that we've seen and the data are very sparse. So you need to think about that in looking at the billfish and the analyses that you're doing. Okay, well, all right. Basically what I did was to take the data and divide it into time and area cells. The cells were five-degree, two-degree, or one degrees in longitude, and pull all of the data by month. I then sorted based on the percent of billfish in the catch of targeted species. Actually, it's billfish discard, dead discards, in the catch of targeted species. I identified those cells which, if eliminated, if you eliminated all of the effort in those cells, you would reduce the billfish bi-catch by 50 percent. This simply identifies the areas where the bi-catch is very high. Now, these particular plots, the cells that are stippled, have effort in them. The colored -- the yellow represent cells of five degrees latitude and longitude that exceeded that 50 percent criterion. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. GOODYEAR: Five degree. A PARTICIPANT: The green (inaudible). MR. GOODYEAR: Yeah, I was. It's green here but it's yellow here. A PARTICIPANT: Okay. MR. GOODYEAR: Okay. The red -- yeah, the red is the same thing by two degrees and the black is the same thing by one degree. What you want to look for for areas of very high percentage of billfish in the catch, not percentage of the catch are billfish overall but the percentage of billfish in the catch, are areas where there is black within red within yellow. We'll switch here for a second and run through a series that goes month by month, and you can follow the distribution. Basically, what I want you to notice is that the although the fish are south down in this area in the winter, during the summer they move up (inaudible). MS. PEEL: Watch the Gulf of Mexico, May through August. MR. GOODYEAR: (Inaudible) June, July, August, September. I'm make this presentation real short here. I presented some of this to you before and last time I suggested -- well, I pointed out -- that the actual selection of various should require more than just a scientist doing it, a scientist perspective. But since I hadn't gotten anybody to help, I suggested three areas based on the combination of the catch rates and the amount of effort and the fact that they were consistent, contiguous blocks. One was a closure June through August in the central and western Gulf, one was March-April down south, and the third was a June through August closure up along the northeast coast. After discussions had gotten started with the proposal to -- for the legislative proposal, Ellen asked me to look at it again, and I actually (inaudible). The area with the highest reduction was this area from the Gulf. I hadn't really looked at where the fish were in particular, but once we -- actually, once Ellen started me looking I went in more detail and started looking at the actual areas that are involved in that catch rate. And you can see here, this is (inaudible) shows some of the percentage rates in the Gulf at various levels right off (inaudible) which is (inaudible) two degrees by five degrees (inaudible) of which almost all of that high bi-catch occurred. It is much higher there than anywhere else. The bi-catch in that area is much higher than it is outside that area, and I think if you redo your analysis with a smaller grid size you'll find a difference because you're diluting some of the bi- catch. Some of the lower catch rates outside of that area are combined with the high catch rates inside, and I think you'll find a better -- at least for billfish. Now I want to point out that the reason that this area is, I think, particularly important for billfish bi-catch is that it's involved in a yellowfin fishery and it's the same problem off the New England coast -- well, not New England but the New Jersey north and, well, primarily New York and New Jersey coast. In terms of the magnitude of what is being caught in these areas, this is the depiction of the two areas that are, I think -- I have urged and the Billfish Foundation is proposing that this Gulf area be included, or at least considered, in the proposal. If you include it along with the other area -- the small Gulf area is not terribly important, at least for billfish -- if you could eliminate all of the effort in those areas and not distribute it elsewhere, you get about a 50 percent reduction in the blue marlin bi-catch, dead discards bi-catch, and about a 75 or 70 percent reduction in sailfish. Obviously, some of that effort is going to go somewhere else. MS. PEEL: Now, did everyone hear that? He said a 50 percent reduction in blue marlin bi-catch mortality discard and 70 percent in sailfish. Those are pretty high numbers. MR. GOODYEAR: Those are for the EEZ. MS. PEEL: (Inaudible.) MR. GOODYEAR: No displacement. MS. PEEL: Without accounting for displaced effort? MR. GOODYEAR: Without accounting for displaced effort. MR. BEIDEMAN: That's in combination with BWFA-1 and 2? MR. GOODYEAR: Yes. And that's really all I had to say. MS. PEEL: Okay, now I'd like to go back -- MR. DUNNIGAN: Ellen Peel, Billfish Foundation. I'd like to get back to what Dave Wilmot was bringing up. We are interested in the conservation benefits both in the regulatory process as well as the legislative process, but since we have been involved with the legislative process we also have -- that continues and can be combined in this piece of legislation. The area in the Gulf is not a permanent closure, as is the one off the South Atlantic. We're looking for only four months there. Thank you. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson and then Steve Loga. MR. BEIDEMAN: A couple of questions for Phil. Phil, what is the target catch losses, because, you know, what I've passed out here, okay, Terry took your information, put it into one degree by month, okay, and set out the average. And if compare what the gains on billfish with the losses of the target species, it's pretty erratic. It's all over. Fifty percent of the target species would be lost during this time in that -- in the Gulf of Mexico. MS. PEEL: Are you talking about the Gulf, Nelson, or are you talking about the South Atlantic? MR. BEIDEMAN: I'm talking about in the Gulf of Mexico. Over 50 percent of the yellowfin. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. GOODYEAR: Well, let me make two points. Yes, there's going to be a loss of yellowfin, and yellowfin is a principal target species in those months. A PARTICIPANT: We can't hear you. MR. GOODYEAR: I said, yes, there would be a loss of yellowfin. But if you compare animal by animal, particularly in the recent years, your comparison is muddied I think quite a bit because a lot of the billfish are not being reported. We can see that. We've seen a decline in the reporting. I say that based on the ratio of reported -- ratio of catch rates on observer vessels versus catch rates as reported in the log books. When observers are on the boats the catch rates for billfish are much higher. MS. PEEL: So this could mean that whatever the savings is could be two, three, and four times higher as the observer data quantified at the last stock assessment. The gains could be even that much higher. MR. GOODYEAR: At least, and particularly for the most recent years. But there still is a lot -- there are a lot more fish in the directed fishery that are going to be lost than individual fish. MR. BEIDEMAN: And the loss is higher. Fishermen don't report their catches and discards fully accurately. MR. DUNNIGAN: Steve Loga. MR. LOGA: Phil, when the Billfish Foundation looked at this did they, since I guess you looked at the log book coverage, was there a difference in the amount of billfish caught live bait versus dead bait? MR. GOODYEAR: I didn't look at that. MR. LOGA: Okay. And on the target catch of yellowfins, did the Billfish Foundation -- I guess they didn't really look at how much yellowfins were lost during that time of the year? MR. GOODYEAR: I have that -- those calculations but I don't have them on the top of my head. MR. LOGA: Okay. And also the areas right there, would it be true that the four months out of the year probably or the four months out of the year that fish are mostly in the Gulf of Mexico probably for the highest rates for all catches, not just billfish? MR. GOODYEAR: Absolutely. MR. LOGA: So it's probably the four months out of the year? MR. GOODYEAR: At least for yellowfin and billfish. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. PEEL: And that also means mahi-mahi and other fish would also reap the benefits. MR. GOODYEAR: Mm-hmm. MR. DUNNIGAN: We have Mau Claverie, Russ Nelson and Randy Blankenship. Mau. MR. CLAVERIE: Yeah, Nelson, in I forget what it was, the '60s or '70s, a Japanese longliner was seized in Panama because they had done something bad in the EEZ. I think it might have been so long ago it was a fishery zone. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. CLAVERIE: All right. And they took the testimony, the depositions, of the captain and the first mate and a crew member, and their sworn testimony was that on the average in the Gulf of Mexico when they put a longline out it was 20 head of marlin every set. That's how good it used to be, or that's how an accurate count was under oath. I don't think which it is. But anyhow, that's a piece of history in the Gulf from the yellowfin longlining as the operations they were conducting during the summer. MR. NELSON: Phil, in looking at the catches, are yellowfin and marlin billfish, is there a real high correlation between them throughout the time and space cells? Do they separate? Are they contiguous or do marlin move on and yellowfins stay behind, or do they tend to track each other throughout the whole year? MR. GOODYEAR: I can't really answer that. MR. NELSON: The point of my question -- MR. GOODYEAR: From the data I've looked at, I think they probably do coincide pretty much. MR. NELSON: Well, the point of my question would be if you closed a certain period of time, after that time would blue marlin move on elsewhere and the yellowfins still be there and be available to be taken, or would that yellowfin catch pretty much be lost as the blue marlin bi-catch was lost? MR. GOODYEAR: I don't know. MR. DUNNIGAN: Randy. MR. BLANKENSHIP: I notice that looking at the -- Randy Blankinship, Parks and Wildlife, Texas. Looking at the NMFS proposals under Billfish 1 and 4 show not only a reduction of blue marlin and sailfish discards but also of large coastal sharks. And when you spread that -- their areas of proposed closure is out across the Gulf, you don't get as much of a reduction in discards for large coastal sharks or for sailfish, it doesn't seem like from just looking at this real quickly. How do you think this would compare specifically with sailfish and then also with large coastal sharks with that area right there? MR. GOODYEAR: I'm not sure with large coastals but I'm fairly sure that this area would behave better for billfish than the larger areas because of the way the displaced effort is treated. MR. BLANKINSHIP: For billfish, but we don't know about sharks. MR. GOODYEAR: I don't know. I haven't looked at the coastal sharks so I would be hesitant to say anything. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: I'm still a little bit confused as far as are these hot spots? Are these, you know, disproportionately high areas of billfish interaction, or are these in fact, you know, disproportionately high areas of effort during this time and in that region? Because pretty much billfish has gone with effort. MR. GOODYEAR: The areas were not identified by effort but by the percentage of billfish in the catch. So it's the percent of billfish and, actually, their catch was -- the target species included in the analysis were yellowfin -- I can't remember now -- yellowfin, swordfish, mahi, and something else. I can't recall right at the moment. But effort was not included in the identification of the areas of highest catch. MR. BEIDEMAN: Right. You haven't looked at it as far as catch per unit of effort? MR. GOODYEAR: Well, yes, I have in doing the calculations of what's actually removed. You have to do that calculations in the catch in the areas so I have done that. MR. BEIDEMAN: Have you looked at how many boats would be affected? You know, how many of the approximately 103 business that fish in the Gulf of Mexico in recent years would be impacted? MR. DUNNIGAN: No. MS. PEEL: Nelson, you said you thought there was 110 and Steve said he thought there was 80, so probably somewhere between those. MR. BEIDEMAN: Probably all the boats in, you know, pelagic longline boats in the Gulf of Mexico fish in those areas during the four months, you know, 52 of which are, you know, I believe in Senator Breaux's back yard, Louisiana. A buyout for those boats would be 40 or 50 million dollars. MS. PEEL: We weren't talking buyout on those. MR. BEIDEMAN: You would have to for four months. MR. DUNNIGAN: Steve Loga. MR. LOGA: Phil, another question. If we displace that fleet, do you feel that we're going to push them into another area? Will they have problems anyway? You and I discussed it that the western Gulf of Mexico is probably the most prolific fishing grounds that we have in the Gulf, and the reason why the catches maybe aren't -- maybe look a little different than towards the eastern Gulf. Maybe it's because their boats aren't there. Do you feel that there is going to be a problem if we move those boats that way also? MR. GOODYEAR: Well, I mean, that's the whole problem behind trying to estimate what the displaced effort is going to do. That effort will probably go someplace if it's not removed from the system. It probably will continue to catch billfish but because of the way the area has been identified, the catch rates almost everywhere else the catch per unit of effort for billfish is less. So I would expect that although there might still be a problem it will be less of a problem. I'm not prepared to try to guess what it would be at this point. MR. DUNNIGAN: Irby. MR. BASCO: Thank you. Phil, a question for you. Did you all consider about the enforcement of that area of that size, like maybe vessel monitoring systems? Is that what you all have in mind if it would be a closure there? MR. GOODYEAR: I've heard that discussed, yes. MR. BASCO: And what is the size of that area? MR. GOODYEAR: I haven't calculated it. It's big. A PARTICIPANT: It's big. MR. BASCO: Thank you. MR. DUNNIGAN: Other questions for Phil? Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: You know, Phil, we're talking about not removing the vessels in this proposal and, you know, we don't have an analysis of, you know, when we move them further east into further, you know, more concentrated swordfish, small swordfish nursery areas, you know, what that's going to do. Can there be a calculation of displacing these vessels? I mean, where are they going to go? They either are going to be on the west coast of Florida escarpment or they go into the Caribbean where billfish catches can even be higher, or they go up into the Mid- Atlantic bigeye tuna fishery during those months. MR. GOODYEAR: Well, they can't go to the Caribbean that time of the year and have higher billfish catch rates. Earlier in the year they could but during that part of the year they can't. We can make any kind of assumption you want about what the displaced effort is and make a calculation. I haven't done it because I don't feel competent to make a guess about what displaced effort is going to do. What I have done when I have needed to make such a thing is to take the average catch rate for every area outside the particular area that's closed and apply that. I don't have any faith that that's terribly good. MR. DUNNIGAN: Ellen Peel. MS. PEEL: I was just going to, I think, emphasize what Phil was saying. At that time the boats can't go to an area that has a higher billfish catch rate, and Steve could elaborate probably as far as probably the size of the boats. They may be limited to go beyond the eastern Gulf. The billfish bi-catch on the eastern Gulf, you know, would be significantly lower. MR. GOODYEAR: I take that back a little bit. They could possibly go around and go up the coast into New Jersey waters. MR. DUNNIGAN: Nelson, and then we're going to try to wrap up. MR. BEIDEMAN: You know, what we're looking at here with the Gulf of Mexico vessels is a completely different scenario than the smaller fiberglass vessels that are along the east coast of Florida. We're looking at basically ex-shrimpers. We're looking at, you know, 65 to 85-foot steel hulls. Their basic move in the past has either been to go to Hawaii where the fishery is now closed or, more recently, they go down into South America and the Caribbean to escape regulations when they're pinched too hard. And that is a concern that should be considered, and it would basically put the entire yellowfin tuna fishery in the Gulf of Mexico out of business by closing those boats or displacing those boats during the top four months of the season for that fishery. They already sustained a month and a half to two months of swordfish quota closures. Add an additional four months? Who can withstand four to six months of their income being eliminated? No business. No business can. They would have to be compensated. They would have to be bought out, and it would be, you know, perhaps in excess of 40 to 50 million dollars. MR. DUNNIGAN: We're going to have lots of opportunity to discuss this tomorrow. We're trying to get information out on the table right now. Are there fact questions that you want still to ask? Ellen. MS. PEEL: Well, I just want -- MR. DUNNIGAN: Not speak. MS. PEEL: No, I just was going to note that Steve Loga could probably better describe the design of boat because he had a different opinion than what you had shared with us, Nelson. Most of these are Vietnamese American owned boats that are fishing right there in the Gulf that are not likely to go to Hawaii. MR. DUNNIGAN: Steve, did you have a question? MR. LOGA: No. Would the Billfish Foundation prefer us to move those boats into Mexico and fish those waters during that time of year? MS. PEEL: I haven't looked at the bi-catch assessment to know what the rate of catch is there at this time so I can't answer. MR. DUNNIGAN: Question? Bob Spaeth. MR. SPAETH: Yes. MR. DUNNIGAN: Turn on the mike, Bob. MR. SPAETH: Phil, back from our old refish days, if you take -- I guess you said anywhere between 80 and 105 boats, whatever the number may be, if you take those boats out for six months, have you had a chance to look and see what other permits those vessels might have and what stresses or overstresses they may put on other fisheries if you don't somehow affect taking the vessel out? In other words, we know they have multi permits. Do we know what we're dealing with here? MR. GOODYEAR: The direct answer to your question is no. I haven't looked at that but we have been mixing up three and four and now six months. The analyses that I did were actually for three months -- June, July and August. The Foundation is talking about adding September or has in part of the conversations, but the analysis we've really only done for June, July and August. MR. DUNNIGAN: Gail Johnson gets the last question. MS. JOHNSON: Thank you. Gail Johnson. Percentages are really interesting and they present one view of a situation, but I'm interested in knowing the actual numbers. In other words, how many marlins are we saving versus how many yellowfin, dolphin, and other sailable fish that support families and boats are we giving up? Do you have that information? MR. GOODYEAR: I have it in a notebook, except that I don't have billfish because of the non-reporting problem. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. DUNNIGAN: Yeah, let's do it tomorrow. Let's see if we can wrap up now and come back for further discussion tomorrow. We're going to go -- we're going to take a break and then -- about a ten-minute break. And then the National Marine Fisheries Service will be running a public hearing. You've been given a lot of information this afternoon, hard copy, paper, and whatever. Take a look at all of that tonight. You know, go over it and be prepared. We are going to have two hours at least tomorrow to talk about the time/area closures issue. The AP will reconvene in the morning at 8 o'clock. The HMS AP will reconvene at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning to talk about the bluefin tuna cap, and then the joint meeting of the panels will reconvene at 10 o'clock. So billfish people, you can sleep. Come back. And everybody needs to be back here for the public hearing at 4 o'clock. You know, you need to hear from the people that are here to speak as well as everybody else. Hang around. Let's take a break. (Recess.) MS. LENT: -- gracefully given up his seat so we'll ask our speakers to come up one by one and speak at that chair. Before we start I would like to ask that you please try and focus your comments on the two major issues relative to this meeting. Even though you are going to be limited in your time, please remember that if we go forward on any rulemaking on these issues we're going to have public hearings and we're going to have a public comment period. So this is your first opportunity but definitely not your last to get your input here. Due to the limited amount of time and the large number of people who want to speak, I would like to ask you to limit your comments to four minutes each. You can say a lot in four minutes. I also invite you to leave any kind of written document that you'd like. Finally, I'll remind you of the ground rules. You address your comments to the Fishery Service and/or the advisory panel. Nothing personal, and nobody gets interrupted. We all respect each other's right to come up here and put in their four or five minutes of comment. Okay? Thank you. All right, then we will start with Glen Delaney. Rich. MR. RUAIS: (Inaudible) few more AP members (inaudible) around the table (inaudible). MS. LENT: We said we were starting at 4 o'clock. It's now 5 or 6 after. AP members, do your jobs and have a seat. Glen Delaney, you're the first speaker. Right there at the mike where Robert Fitzpatrick was sitting. You have four minutes. Thank you. Willie Ethridge. After Willie, Roy Hillhouse. MR. ETHRIDGE: Rebecca, I spent about five hours driving here and I've got to spend about five hours driving home tonight, and since most of my comments are to the panel members I would prefer to speak later or wait till more of them take their seats. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: I thought the cafe was closed. Well, if you don't mind, they were told that we started at 4 o'clock. I apologize, Willie. If somebody can figure out how the lights work, I would appreciate that. Willie, let's just wait a few minutes if you don't mind. Is Phil Cosack in the room? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Okay. Is Phil here as an AP member. Is he taking somebody's place? A PARTICIPANT: MS. LENT: So Phil is after you. Please take your seats, advisory panel members. Our speakers are waiting for you. Are you ready to start, Willie? Four minutes. Thanks. MR. ETHRIDGE: My name is Willie Ethridge. I'm from Wanchese, North Carolina. I run a family- owned seafood business and I personally own three commercial longliners. I came to the meeting today because of my concerns about the time/area closure. The income from my boats is somewhat less than 50 percent of the requirement, I guess, for the buyout. I serve as a board of director on the Blue Water Fisheries Association and at our annual meeting two weeks ago I voted in support of the Blue Water Fisheries Association buyout program that Glen Delaney and the gentleman from Senator Breaux's office brought before you people. I had tremendous reservations as a Blue Water director or as a person voting in support of that, but knowing the tremendous amount of effort and work and the sincerity that Nelson Beideman put into this and knowing that as an industry we had to do something to address the catch of small swordfish, I voted for that proposal. And I came to this meeting to see how it would be accepted. And I certainly wasn't shocked and I certainly wasn't surprised, but it was very, very, puzzling that when National Marine Fisheries -- let me know when I got about a minute left. When National Marine Fisheries came out with their proposal, the people from the environmental communities were silent. The people from the recreational communities, the advisory panel members, couldn't ask enough questions because they acted like they were just shocked, as I was, by something that we weren't expecting to see and I saw that Nelson was a little bit shocked. After we got through that -- and, Rebecca, one thing you got to give me a 30-second extension because this is for your benefit. I have some real serious problems within National Marine Fisheries Highly Migratory Office, but there is under no conditions, they could not pay me enough money to have your job. For you to sit here with this group of people coming at you from three different directions, it's got to be a very, very tough job. And, you know, we're supposedly talking about swordfish and we've got the billfish thrown in there. But whatever the deal was, there was one gentleman here and when he introduced himself he said he was from the University of Memphis, and he asked the question about the economic impact. And I just -- I'm 53 years old next month and I have a reputation of being an outspoken or a hard person, but I really am not. And I can't understand how people can be so self-serving even when it's not for theirselves. I mean, it's like the environmental people that as much as I fight them and everything, I know that we have to have them and I'm glad that they're there. I can't say so much that I'm glad of certain individuals but I'm glad that there's somebody there that's looking out for the resource and the environment. I have nothing -- no problems with the recreational community except their greed factor. And, you know, coming from a family that my family moved to North Carolina because one of my ancestors got shipwrecked on a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the winter months and there was no way to get out of there. So as a person that's been involved in fishing all of his life, you know, you have to change. And if they tell you you can't go catch king mackerel you -- (End of Tape 2, Side A.) MR. ETHRIDGE: -- you've always done something. But we're getting to the point, we're getting to the end, that there's really absolutely nowhere else to go and maybe, you know, my daddy gets real mad when I say this, maybe it is time to sell out and get the hell out of it. But the reason that it's that time is where I really have the problem. You know, there is supposed to be fair and equitable treatment between the different fisheries and just the double standard that goes on with this billfish issue, I just don't know how somebody that is in a position of power like you are, Rebecca, can deal with the pressures that are put on you by people at the Billfish Foundation -- you told me not to get personal but I have to use that one -- that know that they kill far more billfish than longliners do. Probably 10 times, 50 times, more than the longliners do and they can offer a proposal up here to close an area for three months to commercial fishermen, to people making their living fishing in that area, and in the same three months have tournaments that would pay people as much as a half a million dollars for catching one fish that are just telling people that they can't go fishing because they might accidently catch one, and even if they do catch it they've got to cut if off. And I've really rambled on. One more -- another whole minute. The time/area closure that was proposed, the one, two, three, four, I was going to try to say something a little bit funny. When I'm talking publicly I have a hard time doing it, but if anybody saw the movie Goodwill Hunting, I was going to introduce myself as Badwill Ethridge. The guy in Goodwill Hunting was a mathematical genius and Badwill Ethridge is having a real hard time with those graphs. Maybe if I get home and get some time by myself I might be able to figure them out. But, you know, another thing I was going to say was my mother really stressed real hard that I get an education and I just didn't listen to her, and a lot of times through life I had wished that I had. And it kind of made me feel a little bit better when I seen Russ trying to -- Dr. Nelson trying to understand this thing who keeps bragging about -- excuse me, keeps -- has all those titles in front of his name. (Laughter.) MR. ETHRIDGE: So I guess I might have made some people laugh but it just really bothers the devil out of me that people that work for a living are being restricted and regulated by people that want their pleasure to interfere with our livelihood. I know that all this is wasted time except for the fact that the United States Congress passed the Magnuson Act and they instructed you, National Marine Fisheries, to treat us fairly and equally, and you're just not doing that. The time/area closure, if you're going to put a time/area closure in effect, put it in effect for everybody. Let's move out of there, let's let these resources get back plentiful, and then maybe if some of us are still around we'll go back fishing. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Willie. MS. PEEL: Rebecca, since Willie chose to make it personal I can't sit quiet and let him go. MS. LENT: Ellen, just -- MS. PEEL: Wait, wait, wait. No, no -- MS. LENT: Can I get Roy Hillhouse to come up to the table while you're talking? MS. PEEL: Yes, yes. Willie, I think, you know, if you would check with your own industry representatives you would find that we have been working very hard to try to come up with constructive solutions. Had the industry representative been at his appointment yesterday with us, I think we would have made additional progress. We did not have tournaments either as far as your accusation that billfish anglers kill more than longline, I don't believe that and I don't think the science -- but I would appreciate, you know, not singling out the group that has worked hard to put science in to try to support constructive solutions. I think other members of your own industry would recognize that there are other elements that take a different approach. MS. LENT: Ellen, I'm going to have to -- let's move on, please. MR. ETHRIDGE: I said I was speaking for Willie Ethridge. I didn't say I was speaking for any organized group. MS. LENT: Roy Hillhouse, come on up. Thank you. We can not engage in a debate on each speaker. This is an opportunity for these folks to give their comments. We're not going to rebut. MR. HILLHOUSE: I'm Roy Hillhouse, and I just want to say I'm strongly opposed against the cap purse seiners. I've been working in this company for 17 years and we've been taking all the quota cuts. We took two quota cuts, general category. They raised their quotas. I think the seiners should get their chance to get a little bit more of a quota this year. That's basically all I have to say. MS. LENT: Okay. Thank you, Roy. Phil Cosack, are you here? MR. COSACK: Yes. MS. LENT: Okay. Phil, are you on the panel at this meeting, in the advisory panel? MR. COSACK: No. MS. LENT: Okay, come on up. After Phil we'll have Rick Hillhouse. MR. COSACK: Phil Cosack, National Fishing Association. I didn't really come to make a comment today. I came to listen. But after the discussions and the information that was passed out today, I would like to commend Nelson and the Billfish Foundation for at least trying to bring up a solution because that's what it's all about. Solutions. And I have several questions that are in my mind and perhaps maybe if you don't answer them today you'll at least take time to think about answering them. In the effort to reduce 50 percent on a monthly basis in the Gulf of Mexico, I would wonder how you could compensate the longliner monetarily for taking that hit. That would be a very -- I would be concerned about that as an individual, and that should be something that if you were going to make a legislative move that you should consider compensation of some sort. The next thing is the closure, the time/area closure for the -- from Florida to I think it's the 34th parallel. I would be concerned about the additional effort that would be placed in NE-5. There's 2 million hooks now being fished in NE-5 on any given year. I believe if you look in your log books you'll see that. And I would be concerned about being in the closure, where would the displaced vessels go. And more than likely they've got to make a living so they would go to NE-5, and would that effort rise from 2 million to 4 million and would it affect the recreational fisheries? I think it would, and I think you have to consider that and how you're going to take care of those people that are displaced. If you just take -- even if you take the 47 boats out, I believe at one time it was 65 boats fishing in NE-5 and it could easily double, and that would be a problem for us in the northeast corridor and I wish you would take that into consideration. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Phil. Rick Hillhouse and after Rick we'll here from George Permont. MR. BEIDEMAN: Rebecca, one thing (inaudible). MS. LENT: Make it quick, Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: It will be. Phil, just so you know, it's not only been TBF but the CCA and the SFA that have been working with Blue Water on this. MS. LENT: Thank you. SFA? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: ASA. Okay, thanks. Thanks for that clarification. Rick. MR. HILLHOUSE: I'm Rick Hillhouse and I'm a fisherman in the purse seine category. I'm completely opposed to this quota for the purse seiners. Since 1982 the purse seine category has been cut by 35 percent, from 386 metric ton to 250, while other groups have gotten an increase as much as 110 percent for just one group. Everybody is getting increases and the purse seiners have always been taking a decrease whenever other groups feel they should have a little more of the quota. The way this new purse seine cap is written, 250 metric tons or 18 percent of the U.S. quota, whichever is less. So the purse seiners have no other place to go but down. The law should be 18 percent of the U.S. quota, no more, no less. And the purse seine is a very historical fishery. Without the purse seiners catch from years ago there wouldn't be much of a quota to fight over. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Rick. George. And after George Permont we'll hear from Chris Ingrande. MR. PERMONT: Good afternoon. My name is George Permont. I'm a commercial fishermen and fish spotter. Since 1967, 90 percent of my annual income has been dependent on the accurate and successful harvest of tunas, in particular, the Atlantic bluefin tuna. My principal gear method is as a fish spotter working with purse seiners; however, I have also worked with recreational, charter, and other commercial categories. My over-ocean efforts have also included aerial surveys for, among others, Woods Hole Oceanographic, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, the New England Aquarium, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the National Marine Fisheries. I have also personally funded my survey work when I thought such a response by others was inadequate. An example of that would be off of the North Carolina winter fishery in 1994, February. I'm here to speak to the issue of the proposed quota cap on the purse seiners and the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery. Prior to 1981, various seiners accounted for nearly 80 percent of all members of the tuna family caught off the U.S. Atlantic coastal waters. This historical fishing pattern with its documented landings was, in large part, the basis for the determination of the U.S. quota. The quota was initiated in 1982-82. In the 1960s and in the '70s, as many as 20 seiners fished for bluefin, yellowfin and skipjack. Those of us who began the New England purse seine industry were so alarmed at the threat that those vessels in passing posed that we lobbied for quotas and restrictions. Our initiative was to protect the valuable juvenile resource even if it meant the end of our local fishery. It was the right thing to do and the results are evident. I would note that they would be more evident if there had been similar stewardship in the eastern Atlantic. We also fished for the giant Atlantic bluefin tuna and have been since the late '60s and the early '70s. When I began flying in 1972 there were no more than 20 boats using harpoon and rod and reel that tried to sell their catches of this giant fish. The seiner AA Farany was the only commercial vessel of consequence. It was the early thinking of the Farany's owners which led to the introduction of the Japanese market, the result of which is that the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery for giant fish is one of the most commercially viable fisheries on this coast. In 1981 we were rewarded with a quota allocation of giants per historical entry. There were five regional seiners which were directed to equally share a 386 ton quota. That quota divided amongst five vessels amounted to less than the tonnage of fish that I caught with one boat in 1972. Later, that initial quota tonnage was reduced to 301 tons. In 1996 the historical quota for the seiners was further reduced to 250 tons. No other gear method was subjected to a reduction. Several written directives by Rawley Smitten, then-director of Highly Migratory Species, placed the restoration of the historical seiner quota as a priority. We are now realizing an increase in total available U.S. quota, an increase in allocation for all gear methods based on their percentage of the harvest, all gear methods, with the proposed exception of the seiners. It has been suggested that the five vessels in question be capped at the current diminished level, that in spite of the documented historical fishing pattern which determined the U.S. quota, that in spite of our efforts to protect the future of the juvenile fish, that in spite of our already reduced quotas and in spite of written assurances from the director, that in spite of the advisory panel's majority position of status quo for all gear allocation, the historical seiners whose foresight has enabled the fishery to grow beyond everyone's expectations, that those vessels, their owners and crews and families and the dockside support systems and various other infrastructural entities should not be rewarded incrementally is more than lamentable. It is legally challengeable. I would strongly suggest that the National Marine Fisheries amend the fisheries management plan as to allow the seiners to receive their due percentage of quota; however, and I speak for myself, I do feel that this should cap when the quota returns to a mid-point between the original 386 and the current 250 tons. My suggestion would be a cap of 320 tons. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, George. Chris Ingrande and then we'll hear from Roger Hillhouse. MR. INGRANDE: I'm Chris Ingrande. What he said. I'd say that the cuts are -- we definitely want to cut on our cap, on our quota. We've been cut several times. It's not -- it just hasn't been right. We've bent over backwards and I think it's time we are (inaudible). Thanks. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Chris. Roger, and then we'll hear from Michael Avala. MR. HILLHOUSE: My name is Roger Hillhouse and I'm a part owner in three of the purse seiners. I fly a fish spotting plane for the last 40 years, and I got caught by surprise on this meeting as I just got back from a trip so I'm a little off guard. I was once an advisor just like each one of you are here a long time ago, right when we began this whole bluefin project. I enjoyed it and I took the job just as serious as you're probably doing. Kind of like a freshman congressman and you're going to go out and change the world. But somehow or another it didn't quite work that way. Year one we passed a quota and we also passed a size limit. We were very proud of ourselves. But then from that time on we put forward a number of very solid and constructive suggestions, and I'm sure you guys do the same thing and then you wonder what happened to them. They never get to the floor because sometimes they don't fit somebody's agenda. And this agenda right now is catching us purse seiners in a very awkward position. We really don't know how to fight back and there isn't any way, so we ask people like you to meet us half way and be fair. And you voted -- well, let's go on down with what I wrote down. Maybe a half to two thirds of you are government people in some layer associated in state regulations or whatever, and you know the feeling when you put down a good idea and you think it will sail and then all of a sudden a group or an agenda above you somewhere buries it and you idea and thing fails. This cap here appears to be a very small incidental thing. It really doesn't sound like much, but it's one heck of a lot more than it's being touted to be because it's the first step into breaking historical fishing rights. It's putting the foot in the door and we're upset about it. Last year you people here voted by a majority that it should be a status quo for purse seiners and you met it, but it didn't fit somebody's agenda so they put it back in another sheep's closing and it's called a cap this year. It doesn't sound like much, but it's there. Personally, I think it's a slap in the face to you because you voted it once and now you're finding yourselves voting it again, and we're sweating it out to see which way you will vote because it makes a lot of difference to us whether we have a cap or whether we're treated like other people. I don't think the fact that you catch a fish by a hook or you catch it by a harpoon or a net. So long as you stay within the conservation lines it shouldn't be treated any different than anybody else. If I was sitting on this advisory committee I know what I'd vote. I'd vote my conscience on it. I'm going to leave that up to you. You did it the last time. This cap has nothing to do with conservation to start with. There is no risk to the fish. The vote on the purse seine of 250 tons should be null and void on principle if nothing else. I had a number of notes but I'm trying to keep within those four minutes, so let's go to independent science and its importance. Do you ever wonder why so much pressure is put on purse seiners? I've heard it a number of times said that when we had 1 380-ton quota that we were the ones that financed a lot of the independent science. And that's correct. We did, and we'll do it again. We'll do it out of what we have. We help a lot and there are conservation groups that haven't put a dime into it. Some of them are bad. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. They spend their time trying to cut us down when they could take that same money and join us and get something done at ICCAT. So, anyway, we wonder why maybe we get cut down, and maybe this group or this agenda has figured out if we cut down on the money these people have, maybe we won't have so much opposition with independent science. Independent science has embarrassed the National Marine Fishery Service a number of times. They're not always wrong. They are good, hardworking people but they've been shot down a number of times by -- and if we were not contributing to this science where would we all be? I can tell you. Amid doom and gloom sometimes. Let's say that a few years ago they were brought before the National Academy of Science to settle the argument. Ten independent scientists, and they ruled that the cold, hard analysis was in error and the numbers needed to be adjusted. Not our cold, hard, but National Marine Fisheries. MS. LENT: About one minute left, if you could wrap it up. MR. HILLHOUSE: I am almost there. So amid gloom and doom we went to one of the ICCAT meetings recently. Our government recommended a cut in the quota and due to an aerial survey that ten or eleven fish spotters put together with some National Marine Fisheries money and the CORIA money, took these photos of these huge schools of fish and ICCAT got so excited and says, we listen to your people, there's nothing. So these things are helped financed when people make money. Now speaking of an aerial survey, I personally with another spotter put the Noah airplane on huge schools of fish, thousands and thousands of fish, line them up, tell them when to take the picture, and nobody has ever seen those pictures or ever heard of them again. And that was before our aerial survey and I still have never heard what happened to them, and I can assume they had bad film. Excuse me. So we may flatter ourselves that anybody would want to kill us off just because of independent science. I think our Congress years ago settled that with check and balance of Congress, Administration, Judicial systems. So what's wrong with a little independent science? It keeps us all on our toes and I say a vote no on this purse seine cap is a vote towards independent science because I guarantee every extra penny we get we spend it with East Coast Tuna on their science and we welcome other groups that will join us. So I hope -- MS. LENT: Thank you, Ray. MR. HILLHOUSE: I hope you vote the way I would vote if I was still on a commission. MS. LENT: Thank you. Michael Avala and then we'll hear from David Cabrall. MR. AVALA: My name is Mike Avala. I fish on the Bull Ruth and Pat (phonetic) purse seine for bluefin tuna. I fished there for 20 years. I'm married. I have three little kids, and I make my living catching giant bluefin tuna. Any cap on the purse seiners definitely affects me, my family, and my income. Like I said, I fished for 20 years. I believe it makes me a historical participant to this fishery. And a cap would eventually put me out of business. The purse seine fleet has suffered many cuts in the past and now that the U.S. quota is increased, the seiners with a cap will receive no quota or any additional tonnage. And I am sure that in the future if there are cuts, they are going to come look to the purse seiners first for the cuts, and I don't think that's right. If the quota goes up, we should be able to get an increase, and if the quota goes down we've always taken the increase. And that's all I've got to say. I'm just totally opposed to any cap. Thank you. MS. LENT: Okay, thank you, Michael. David and then we'll hear from Joseph Avala. Please correct my pronunciation of your last name. Sorry. MR. CABRALL: My name is David Cabrall. I live in Westport, Mass. I'm a crew member on the fishing vessel Ruth and Pat, a vessel which participates in the purse seine fishery for Atlantic bluefin tuna. I've been fishing for bluefin tuna for more than 18 years. The share I get as a crew member on the fishing vessel Ruth and Pat is critical to me and my family for it accounts for more than 95 percent of my income. I would like to talk about the National Marine Fishery's proposal for the allocation of bluefin tuna and, in particular, about the way which National Marine Fisheries proposed to handle allocations in a purse seine fleet in the future. National Marine Fisheries has proposed that each bluefin tuna group gets a specified percent of the overall ICCAT quota to the United States. However, the purse seine fleet would be the only gear group to be limited to a maximum tonnage, only equal to the 1998 allocation of 250 metric tons. In other words, while all other gear groups would benefit proportionately from increases, the purse seiners would not. This is including the additional 43 metric ton we are due to receive in 1999. It is unfair, unjust, to single out the purse seiners in this way. When quota issues were discussed in the past, I'm sure that (inaudible) favored maintenance of historical allocation or status quo did not mean purse seine fleet would be frozen forever at its current level even if more quota became available from ICCAT. It is completely unjust to say that the purse seine fleet must suffer along with others if the ICCAT quota is reduced, but that it can not benefit from an ICCAT increase. For years we have shouldered the burden of conservation in order to help rebuild the stock. Now with conservation working, it is only fair and right that we should receive our share of the quota increase due to the success of our efforts. In sum, I urge the National Marine Fishery as strongly as I can to remove the 259 metric ton ceiling on the purse seine allocation in the final regulations. Thank you for your consideration. MS. LENT: Thank you, David. Joseph Avala and then we'll hear from Cory Desuzo. MR. AVALA: Hi, I'm Joe Avala. I fish on Ruth and Pat and I own the Potpourri. I'm here to talk on the tuna cap. The total United States tuna allocation from ICCAT was just because of the seiners. In 1982 when ICCAT wanted information or records of how much tuna was landed in the U.S., the records they had was from the seiners. So all our tuna actually came from the seiners. Later on the seiners were given a quota and in 1995 one of the categories went over their quota and in order for the U.S. to save face they came to the seiners and I say stole or borrowed 50 or 60 ton from the seiners, with the promise that when fish came back that they would be restored to the seiners. We have letters and -- to that effect. So any time that something has happened with the tuna, it's the seiners who have given up and given up and given up. Now, I've had so many things pushed on me from NMFS with swordfish, we're dragging with all their rules that take into no consideration that I have a family to support. I've only been tuna fishing now for three years but I need it because I have almost nothing else. So it's a big economic loss to me although every time NMFS comes out with an economical impact it's a very small economical impact because there's only 18 people involved. Small for everybody else but not for them 18 people. And I happen to be one of them. Twice, not once. So now here I am on a tuna boat. I must be poison or you must have a target on my back because wherever I go you target me out. Here we are with the seiners now. We've got a little bit of fish back and we should be getting some, at least the percentage that everybody else is getting. We're not trying to cut any other user groups because by working together we did get more tuna. You guys are trying to say there was only 3,000 in the whole western Atlantic and, thanks to George Permont and Marlene Lucavich and New England Aquarium and the pilots, we proved how much fish was out there. Thanks to the seiners and their affiliates again. So here we are now. There's a little bit more fish and you put a cap on it so we can never go up. However, if comes the middle of August and somebody goes over and the U.S. is in danger of going its allocated amount of fish quota from ICCAT, where are you going to get it? The seiners are the only ones who haven't been out fishing. Guaranteed you go after them again. We have no guarantees. All these people know it. They've told you that time and time again. But do you care? No, it don't make no difference to you. But I'll tell you it makes a big difference to me. Magnuson says in Magnuson Act that everything should be done fairly. If you need to make rules to cut back on the quotas, it should all be done equitably amongst all user groups. It hasn't been. It's been the seiners. It also says when the fish come back it should be done equally to all user groups. It hasn't. Not to the seiners. That's all I have to say. I want to thank you for your time. I know it's all anecdotal information, but thanks anyway. MS. LENT: It's very useful. Thank you, Joseph. I do appreciate the tie to the national standards, the Magnuson-Stevens Act. That's a helpful comment for everybody here. Corey. Then after Corey we'll hear from Sonny Avala. MR. DESUZO: Hi, my name is Corey Desuzo and I'm from Akusnut, Mass. I'm a crew member on a seiner for 11 years and I've already seen what you guys have done to us in the past with our quota. Since '91 we've taken a 40 percent cut and due to the Japanese economy last year we took a 40 percent cut in pay, which we had no control over. We're the ones that have taken substantial cuts in the past and now when it's time to give some fish away you want to cap us at our current level. How much more unfair do you want to make this? One of the things you're forgetting is when the U.S. quota was established in the early '80s they took the landings of the seiners to get that quota, and had there been no seiners there might not ever have been a commercial bluefin fishery in the U.S. And, also, capping the seiners goes totally against the principle of traditional fishing patterns expressed in the Magnuson Act. You're playing with our livelihoods and our future. The least you could do would be to do away with the purse seine cap so at least if the U.S. got more quota we could benefit from it too since we've already suffered enough. Thanks. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Corey. Sonny. And then after Sonny we'll hear from George Vasoncelos. MR. AVALA: Good afternoon. My name is Sonny Avala. I'm captain of the purse seiner Ruth and Pat. I have been seining tuna since the early '60s. The brunt of my income comes from seining tuna. I want to go on record as being opposed to the cap on the purse seine fleet. I'm a former member of the ICCAT advisory board. I was also a U.S. delegate in 1982 when the original 30-year conservation management plan was drawn up. The idea of the plan was for all user groups to accept a temporary inconvenience in the name of conservation so that all user groups involved could benefit in the future as the stocks were rebuilt. The seiners have been expected to accept more than their fair share of the burden of quota cuts in the past and have done so in the name of conservation and with the intent that they would share in the expected rewards in the future as the quota increased. It was under that concept that the people involved made their occupational and business decisions and investments with an 85 ton per boat allocation. Now, once again, the new faces in NMFS have decided to change the rules in the management plan. I believe for a fishery management plan to be successful requires cooperation between the fishery managers and the fishermen. Cooperation will provide good science for the fishery managers, good conservation measures for the fishery, and a lucrative fishery for the fishermen. Need we ask any more? With this proposed cap on the seine fleet the new faces in NMFS are proposing a one-way street for one user group. They are allowing for a decrease in the seiners' allocation with no chance for an increase. I fail to see any act of cooperation with the purse seine fleet by the fishery managers. I think it would be a step against good science, good conservation, and the occupational and business decisions made by the fishermen involved. I ask NMFS to reconsider and remove the cap on the seiners in the name of conservation and fairness to the people involved and to treat them the same as all other user groups in all them quota adjustments. Nothing more and nothing less. I feel this cap on one user group is unfair, unjust, and unacceptable. This purse seine cap directly impacts the purse seine fisherman economically, which is against the Magnuson Act. It is directly against preserving traditional fisheries, which is also against the Magnuson Act. And also it is directly against the historical fishing patterns from which the U.S. quota was originally derived at the ICCAT meetings. I was there. And just for information's sake to wrap this up, I would like to say in 1981 the seiner Ruth and Pat landed approximately 24,000 bluefin. That's thousand, no hundred. In 1983 we voluntarily in the management plan, part of what I sat in on as a U.S. delegate, came up with an allocation, an individual allocation for the same boats, of approximately 330 fish. That's 330 versus 24,000. There were boats that caught more than us. We didn't catch the top amount. There were people who caught more. And in wrapping it up, I would just like to say the goal of U.S. fishery managers should be more fish for all user groups as the stocks continue to improve. Thank you for your time and consideration. MS. LENT: Thank you, Sonny. George. And then we'll hear from Matt Paquette. MR. VASCONCELOS: Good afternoon. My name is George Vasconcelos. I'm a commercial fisherman on the purse seiner Ruth and Pat. And here's a big surprise: I'm opposed to the proposed purse seine cap. I have counted on giant bluefin tuna for my main source of income since 1980. There are about 60 people directly involved in this historical fishery who depend on it for their main source of income. In this proposal we are allocated 18 percent of the U.S. quota, which seems fair on the surface if the quota ever goes down our quota will go down proportionately. But if the quota goes up, indeed if the quota ever doubles or triples or even more, our quota can never go up. The purse seine cap goes against the proposed National Marine Fishery Service objectives because it is designed to possibly wipe out this historical fishery eventually. Since 1991 we have lost about 40 percent of our quota, which had nothing to do with conservation. In 1995 we had 50 metric ton taken from us with a promise we'd get it back if the U.S. ever got more quota. Last year due to the poor Japanese economy and the weak Japanese yen, we had a 40 percent pay cut from the previous year. We have such a small quota now that anything other than a high price for our fish makes it difficult for us to make ends meet. We have done everything we can to conserve this resource. We are very selective and all the fish we catch have spawned at least once. I ask you to please help get rid of this unfair proposal for a purse seine cap. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, George. And -- make it real quick, Ray. We've got a lot of people who want to talk. Thanks. A PARTICIPANT: Thank you, Rebecca. I just want to point out, what is the size of the crew of the Ruth and Pat or some of the other purse seiners? A PARTICIPANT: We have about ten on each boat. A PARTICIPANT: About ten on each boat? Thank you. A PARTICIPANT: Also (inaudible). MS. LENT: Terrific. Thank you. Very good question. Okay, Matt. And then we'll hear from Steven Avala after that. MR. PAQUETTE: My name is Matt Paquette. I'm from Fahavan, Massachusetts. I've been a crewman on the Ruth and Pat for -- since 1980. My income from bluefin is crucial to my family. It's my main source of income. Imposing this cap, you also impose a cap, a salary cap, on every man that works on a purse seiner. I don't think there's a person in this room that would want to spend the rest of their life with a salary cap. The purse seiners are a historical part of this fishery and I think the Magnuson Act calls for the preservation of historical fisheries. In past years when quota cuts were implemented, it was the seiners and the seiners only that received the cuts. We have endured the brunt of the conservation burden for this fishery for a good many years now, and I think it's time we take part in the rewards brought forth by our efforts. So I strongly urge this board to persuade the National Marine Fishery Service to remove the cap from the 250 tons on the purse seine quota. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Matt. Steven Avala. Oh, hang on, Matt. A quick question. MR. BASCO: (Inaudible) ask you a question (inaudible). What was -- MS. LENT: Use your mike, please, Irby. MR. BASCO: Sorry. What is the length of time of your fishing season or how long do you fish? MR. PAQUETTE: (Inaudible.) MR. BASCO: I'm sorry? MR. PAQUETTE: That varies. MR. BASCO: Well, I mean, do you have -- MR. PAQUETTE: (Inaudible.) MR. BASCO: Is it one month, two months, five months? I'm unfamiliar with the fishery. MR. PAQUETTE: It's been as short as two weeks. It's been as high as three months. MR. BASCO: Okay, thank you. MS. LENT: Okay. Steve Avala, go ahead. MR. AVALA: My name is Steve Avala. I work on the seiner Ruth and Pat. I've worked there for 20 years. I started there as a swordfisherman at the age of 12, and in 1980 I started tuna fishing. I have been a commercial fisherman for some of my childhood and all of my adulthood. I rely on fishing for 100 percent of my income. I would like to say that I strongly oppose a cap on the purse seiners. I think it is totally inappropriate to tell people that have fought hard to rebuild the fishery that they will not share in any profits in the future for all of their efforts in the past. I feel the seiners have been discriminated against enough by all the regulations we have to live with and singling us out for a quota cap is nothing less than discriminatory. I don't think any person in this room or in this country would agree to placing a quota cap or salary cap on their job, whether it be a government employee, an office worker, or a commercial fisherman. I think this cap has nothing to do with conservation or preservation. It's just another cheap shot by National Marine Fisheries. They're trying to destroy a very traditional fishery. In closing, I ask everyone on the AP to oppose any cap on the purse seiners. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Steve. Sam Mayola. I hope I pronounced that correctly. And after that we'll hear from Jule Bedrill. MR. MAELLO: Good afternoon. My name is Sam Mayola. I'm a fisherman on the tuna seiner Sea Rover. I'm totally against a quota cap for the purse seine category because there is no legitimate reason for this biased action. We have been continually harassed and discriminated against because we are a minority. The seiners were the major reason why the U.S. received 52 percent of the western Atlantic quota, and I have watched as quota cuts after quota cuts have been taken away from us with a promise that you will get them back when the time comes. The victory at ICCAT, I believe that time is now. I believe we should return to the historical proportional distribution of 1982. I believe we should stop the redistribution of quota so as to appease a political select few. And I believe we should say no to the purse seine cap. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Sam. Jule and then after Jule we'll hear from Joey Jansowitz. MR. BUDREAUX: Thank you for the opportunity to comment here today on the purse seine cap issue. My name is Jule Budreaux and I am president of the North Shore Community Tuna Association from Saugus, Mass. Our association has over 100 members, making us one of the largest organizations representing general category fishermen. In addition to fishermen, we have many support businesses such as marinas, bait and tackle supplies, fish dealers, marine electronic suppliers, boat repair facilities, and other supporting organizations. This September our association will host a giant bluefin tuna tournament from Gloucester. The purpose of this tournament is to raise money for the Atlantic bluefin tuna research program at the New England Aquarium. We hope to sell all bluefin tuna fishermen participate in this worthy cause so that someday we may better understand the migration habits, the stock structure and biology of this magnificent fish. Now on to the purse seine cap issue. North Shore Community Tuna Association does not support this cap on the purse seine fleet. We are fully aware and recognize the important role the purse seine fleet has had in developing this fishery and the markets we have today. We respect the traditional nature of the purse seine fishery and the obviously economic importance it has on the Port of Gloucester as well as to the crews and the families of the fleet. In 1997, the value of bluefin tuna landed in Gloucester was $4,200,000, second only to the codfish at $5 million. I am personally aware of several businesses in Gloucester that benefit substantially from the purse seine fishery and, as I have said before, we are a commercial tuna association looking for the interest of the entire community. We can not see any valid reasons to penalize the purse seine fishery and the businesses and families that depend on it for this -- on it as this recovery plan moves forward. I also want to inform the advisory panel that I and many of our members attended the March public comment hearing in Gloucester on the proposed rules and that every fisherman in the room opposed this cap. We are the fishermen who directly compete commercially with the purse seiners and I think you should favorably consider our support and allow them full and equitable sharing in the U.S. bluefin quota and in any quota increase. A cap on the purse seine fishery is seen by us in the general category as the first step in the process of decommercialization of the bluefin tuna industry. We in the general category don't wan this to happen. North Shore Community Tuna Association does not support efforts to take anyone else's quota. We firmly believe that those advocating unfairly reducing another category from its historical level of participation are in the minority. We urge the advisory panel to ignore these greedy calls and intentions. We support the historical proportional sharing. We believe in the Magnuson Act also requires that National Marine Fisheries allow an equitable share of recovery benefits among all user groups. This cap is very discriminatory toward only one user group. Again, I strongly urge you, the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel, to recommend that National Marine Fisheries eliminate the cap on the purse seiners as soon as possible. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Jule. So we'll hear from Joey Jansowitz and them from Mark Porier (phonetic). MR. JANSOWITZ: Hi, everybody once again on a beautiful fishing day in New England that I can't be at. My name is Joe Jansowitz. I'm the current president of the East Coast Tuna Association. I've been fishing for giant bluefins since 1966 when I was 12 years old. They finally let me in the chair in 1968 and I caught one. I've been in the general and harpoon categories since the beginning of the management regulations in the '70s. The East Coast Tuna Association's membership ranges from about 350 to 450 people a year. We are the largest and the oldest New England based tuna organization and the bulk of our membership comes from general category and harpoon category members. All five purse seine boats and their crews are also members, and we have charter boat category members, incidental category members. Basically, we represent everybody in the bluefin fishery. Our board of directors consists of 25 members from the various fishing categories. Includes several licensed dealers also. The association was formed in 1982. We have two principal objectives: to sponsor independent science on Atlantic bluefin tuna resource and to protect the traditional United States bluefin fisheries and our historical fishing patterns. This means we work to fight and preserve all five historical commercial and recreational fishing categories for Atlantic bluefin. We do not want to see any traditional U.S. fisheries put out of business. Obviously we recognize that all U.S. groups need more quota and the only way we can do that is to get more quota from ICCAT. We categorically reject the efforts of some to take away or steal quota from other categories. East Coast Tuna is adamantly opposed to this cap on the purse seine fleet as it will destroy the historical proportional quota sharing system in place since 1982. This cap is entirely inconsistent with the fisheries management plan's objectives to minimize economic displacement, preserve traditional fisheries, and the cap will eventually dramatically distort the U.S. historical fishing pattern for bluefin. I want to make this point very, very, clear to everybody here. On behalf of all of our members of the East Coast Tuna Association, bar none, that includes every category of fisherman, hundreds of general and harpoon category members, there is no legitimate justification for this cap and this blatant discrimination against one user group and one user group only must end now. Not five minutes from now. Now. We strongly urge that the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel not to be misled by a few vocal individuals with short-sighted agenda against these boats. Purse seine boats have every right to their historical share in this fishery and the benefits resulting from the long-term, expensive recovery plan for Atlantic bluefin tuna. To summarize a few, purse seine fishermen are largely responsible for the U.S. receiving 52 percent of the western quota due to their large catch history when the fish were not valuable in the '60s and early '70s. They were the first to develop the direct export market to Japan, bringing a longline freezer boat into Cape Cod Bay around 1970. They also insisted at that time that the longline boat from Japan purchase not only their purse seine fish but bluefin tuna giants from everybody, including the harpooners, the handliners, and everybody else who were selling these fish for about a nickel a pound back then to the canneries. They volunteered to limit -- the purse seiners volunteered to limit their production when concerns for the resource developed, even though there were no regulations, the science was weak, much weaker than today, and even though their Canadian counterparts continued to fish heavily on school tuna. They also gave up entirely their catch of small fish in 1982 in exchange for a modest quota on the giants. They have also been forced to bear the brunt of the quota reductions to restore the stock, seeing their quota reduced from 386 metric tons to the current level of 250, while the general category has gone up from 531 to 654 and the angling category has increased from 126 to 265 plus. They have an equitable share of the resource, not an excessive share, as some have tried to claim. Many highline vessels in the general and harpoon category, the charter boat, the angling categories, routinely exceed the purse seine shares in terms of numbers of fish caught per man and in terms of gross stock per man on an annual basis. We object to this attempt to single out only the purse seine category on the basis of somebody's notion of what is fair or what should be fair for another competing group. Capping the purse seine boats is simply a death sentence either in short term or long term because the fishery will not be able to compete as other category quotas rise. This market is very volume-sensitive. You've got purse seine fish competing with harpoon fish, competing with handline fish, competing with rod and reel fish. If there is more fish on the market from these other categories and the purse seiners are capped at 250 tons, it becomes economically insane for them to fish. I hate seeing caps on any commercial categories. I'm a commercial fisherman year round. I fish for bluefin in the summertime, obviously, but I fish for lobsters in the wintertime. And anything that limits commercial fishermen bugs the snot right out of me. To continue on, I would like to tell you that our members were pleased to hear that the HMS Advisory Panel supported the status quo on allocations in January of last year. There is no better alternative to the historical proportional sharing system in place since 1981. Frankly, we believe it is inappropriate for the advisory panel to engage itself in the complicated issue of shares of a resource either within a category or among categories. There is no management objective within the FMP to support this activity and we would not support a new objective to make this exercise legitimate. MS. LENT: Joey, can you wrap it up in about a minute? MR. JANSOWITZ: Yes, I will, Rebecca. Anything for you, dear. We're also aware -- and I've seen the transcripts -- that there was some substantial opposition on the advisory panel to cap -- to the purse seine cap when it was first proposed by NMFS in early 1999. We appreciate this past support and hope you can get NMFS to listen this time. You should also be aware that support for the purse seine fleet was very strong at every public hearing that I attended in New England. I attended all of them except for the one at the Samerset resort. There was not one person in favor of a purse seine cap, because who's next? Next year could it be the angling category in for a cap or the general category in for a cap? Who's next? Okay. On behalf of the entire membership of the East Coast Tuna Association, I strongly urge the advisory panel to reject the National Marine Fisheries Service cap and support a framework regulatory action to eliminate the cap and provide the seine fleet with their 8 tons that they had due this year because we all got an increase. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Can I just -- MS. LENT: Thank you, Joey. MR. JANSOWITZ: Can I just give my personal comments? Just one quick personal comment. MS. LENT: Quick. Personal comment. Thanks. MR. JANSOWITZ: Leave the sworfisherman alone, and I personally think that the purse seine cap is bogus. You want to start capping people? You cap everybody and we can start with 1985 landings of 690 in the general, 74 in the harpoon, 377 in the purse seine, 133 incidental, and 149 in the angling category. Start your caps there. MS. LENT: Thank you. Jim, I've asked that AP members address the group at the end. Is that okay, or do you have a factual quota? MR. DONOFRIO: I have just a direct question. MS. LENT: Can you come to a microphone, Jim? Jim, introduce yourself. MR. DONOFRIO: Jim Donofrio. I'm an advisory panel member. Joey, I have a question for you. Do you anticipate if this cap is put into place, will there be an increase in effort on the yellowfin tuna stocks from the purse seine industry? MR. JANSOWITZ: I wouldn't think so. Why would anything change? MR. DONOFRIO: Okay, thanks. MS. LENT: Okay. Mark Querierre. I didn't recognize you, Mark. You're in your civvies today. And then we'll hear from Elden Greenberg after that. MR. PORIER: Yes, I am in my full Washington battle dress. My name is Mark Porier. I'm a commercial bluefin tuna fisherman out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a member of the board of directors of East Coast Tuna. But today I'm here talking as Mark, the guy who fishes from Portsmouth. I think that a lot of the points have already been eloquently made with regard to the history of the fishery and the opposition to the cap, which I am opposed to even as a general category fisherman. And I guess I had to step back when I heard about this, and I was kind of befuddle by it all, especially as I see the increases that are scheduled over the next several years for every other category. And I started asking myself why, why is this happening? And, frankly, I didn't like the answers I came up with. None of them pass the smell test. My BS detector was going off and I just did not like what I was beginning to think about our National Marine Fisheries Service. And, again, I ask the question why. It can't be because of conservation. These guys have been continually cut and have made excellent strides towards the conservation of these fish. They have given us a lot of science and, again, those points have been made. So it couldn't be conservation. Could it be institutional vendetta? We all know that the purse seiners have kind of embarrassed NMFS from time to time along with the spotter pilots with regard to stock assessments. I mean, we know in '93 for instance when there were four to six thousand fish in an afternoon we saw 17,000. Maybe it's payback time. I don't know. None of these answers seem to make a lot of sense. And with regard to intransigence. They're not intransigent when it comes to changes. They've been changing every year practically for the last 20 years. So why are we continually being faced with an agency going against one particular segment of the fishery? It simply doesn't make any sense. And, basically, I would like to leave those questions in people's minds on this AP panel because you know that you have the power to change people's lives. It may sound melodramatic, but you've heard from people here today who have taken substantial pay cuts, who see their livelihood going down the tubes. You additionally hear from people who are fishing commercially who believe this is the first step on a slippery slope towards full decommercialization of this fishery. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I see it going that way. I don't understand why institutionally National Marine Fisheries continually bangs on the seine boat category -- (End of Tape 2, Side B.) MS. LENT: -- changed and we can increase the quota. Then you're right. We'd have to go back and -- MR. GREENBERG: Elden Greenberg. I'm a partner with the law firm of Garvey, Shubert and Behr, and I represent the East Coast Tuna Association and the owners and operators of the purse seine vessels. It is always daunting to come up to speak after you've heard the heartfelt comments of people whose lives and livelihood are dependent on a fishery and, as a lawyer, have to focus on dry legalities. But those legalities are important here, and I think this committee, this panel, is faced with an important test having to do with whether Congress' solicitude for fairness and equity in allocation have any meaning at all or whether they can simply be ignored by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Simply stated, I believe the cap is not only unfair and discriminatory, as you have heard, but also that it can't be squared with the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. And you are faced here with a unique circumstance. This is the first fishery where we have three separate provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act relating to fairness and equity in allocation which come together and which have to be construed and applied. You have National Standard Number Four, which you're all familiar with, which requires allocations to be fair and equitable and reasonably calculated to promote conservation. Because you're dealing with a highly migratory species, you have Section 304(g) which requires that management measure "take into account traditional fishing patterns," and also, "be fair and equitable." And, finally, because you are dealing with a fishery which has been declared overfished by the National Marine Fisheries Service, you have Section 304(e)(4) which provides that the Agency must allocate overfishing restrictions and recovery benefits fairly and equitably among sectors of the fishery. I want to emphasize two things about the history of these provisions. First, in 1990 when Congress enacted Section 304(g), it stated that its goal was to recognize traditional participants. And what it intended to do was largely ratify the consistent past NMFS practice in this fishery of allocating on the basis of historical proportions among the gear groups. The second point I want to emphasize about the history of these provisions relates to Section 304(e) which was adopted in 1996. And when that provision was added to the law, Congress made it clear that where groups were asked to bear the burden of restrictive measures under recovery plans then it was only fair to let them participate as well in the benefits of recovery. I simply don't see how a purse seine cap is consistent with these provisions of the Magnuson- Stevens Act. If in the future the quota for Atlantic bluefin tuna -- excuse me, the quota for Atlantic bluefin tuna grows, the purse seine sector will not get some benefit; it will not get a little benefit; it will get no benefit at all. That is not fair and equitable sharing in the benefits of recovery. At the same time, as has been pointed out by other speakers, the traditional fishing pattern in this fishery, the historical allocations in proportion to the harvest in the early 1980s, will be more and more distorted over time until ultimately it is unrecognizable. I think you'll hear more tomorrow in greater detail about the distortions which will occur as and if the quota grows, but it's absolutely clear that that distortion will be dramatic and absolutely unjustifiable in terms of the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The National Marine Fisheries Service rejected a 50 percent cut in the purse seine quota in the final HMS FMP. It rejected it because it said it resulted in a "failure to maintain traditional fishing patterns as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act." Well, I am telling you that the purse seine cap suffers from precisely the same problem. Over time, it will distort the traditional fishing pattern. That patterns will not be maintained and the result is inconsistent with the requirements of the Magnuson- Stevens Act. The bottom line is that no matter how you read the law, such a result can never be deemed to meet the statutory standards for allocation. It is the kind of political solution which Congress condemned in 1976 when the statute was first enacted, that it condemned in 1990 when it adopted the HMS provisions, and that it condemned in 1996 when it adopted the provisions for managing overfished fisheries. And I urge this panel to strike a blow for the proper interpretation of what is, after all, the fundamental law under which we must all operate, and that it strongly recommend to the Fisheries Service that the purse seine cap be removed. MS. LENT: Thank you, Elden. I think we have a couple of very quick questions starting with Mau and then Ray. MR. CLAVERIE: Elden, Mau Claverie. What years would you suggest as a basis for historical and traditional allocation? MR. GREENBERG: Well, the Fisheries Service used allocations during the period 1983 to 1991 as a rough basis for historical allocations. It maintained the same allocation among the gear groups during that period. MS. LENT: Okay. Ray. MR. BOGAN: Mau asked the first question for me, and that is what is historical. And I think we've arbitrarily chosen the 1980s because it's not in any way indicative of what the purse seine category was. The reason I raise that point is because, first of all, I agree with your legal analysis, and that is that we can not ultimately sustain a vote that would cap the purse seine in this way. However, I think for the record it is important to ask the next question, and that is do we actually think that we are somehow maintaining the traditional fishery in light of restrictions on certain other categories, because we've heard that the purse seine category is the only one that's going to be capped. The angling category in the school fishery was capped a long time ago through ICCAT and we have the most restrictive catch per the amount of participants involved. So I think it's not just the historical basis but if we talk about the recovery period I think we all have to look at a broader picture. MS. LENT: Okay, we'll be debating this tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. A quick comment by Bob Hayes and we've got to move on. MR. HAYES: I preface that by saying I don't think I've got a dog in this fight so I just -- A PARTICIPANT: It's nice to hear that, Bob. MR. HAYES: But the question I've got is is your argument the same if -- and I understand there's sort of an 8 percent increase. What if it wasn't a cap and it was a disproportionate level of increase? In other words, let's say there is an 8 percent increase overall and the purse seine quota went up 2 percent. Would your argument be the same? MR. GREENBERG: It might not be as strong but it would probably be the same. MR. HAYES: That's what I thought. Thanks. MS. LENT: Okay, quickly, Rich. MR. RUAIS: Just quick to Ray's comment, I think the angling category is in a little bit different situation because the cap is a percentage of the total so it's not really a cap; it continues to go up. As the total quota goes up, obviously 8 percent of 1,244 is not as large as 8 percent of 1.387. And if the quota eventually goes --the U.S. quota eventually goes to 17 or 18 hundred tons, 8 percent of that number is also going to be higher. So there is growth. It's not the same kind of cap where what they're saying in the case of the purse seiners is that it's 18.6 percent or 250, whichever is less. So they can't numerically go any higher whereas the angling category will grow as the U.S. quota grows. MR. BOGAN: But for the record, it was traditionally 15 percent of that. MS. LENT: Okay. Thank you, Elden. We're all getting some mathematical brain twisters here, 8 percent versus 15 percent of something that's growing. Jeff Oden and then we'll hear from Dewey Himelright. MR. ODEN: My name is Jeff Oden. I'm a commercial fisherman from Hatteras and I'm not a very good public speaker and right now it's a pretty emotional issue for me for the simple reason that it's poetic that I ended up following the gentleman I just did. He was speaking a lot of fair and equitable. And I say it's an emotional issue to me because I recently just lost two permits and I guess I've primarily lost them due to -- I was just trying to be versatile and I'm not a New York lawyer and I just didn't keep up with the paperwork. And there was another mitigating factor but I'll deal with that through the appeal process and I've been told I'll probably lose it. But, you know, what I find pretty hard to fathom is all that's come down on this fishery, the longline fishery, you know, and all the talk of reducing bi-catch and bi-catch mortality and so forth and so on. And, you know, what I find pretty alarming is the strange silence from the environmental community for the simple fact that there is nothing being said about recreational catch-and-release mortality. Now, I mean, a lot of people try to shrug this off but I'm not ignorant to it. I used to own a charter boat and, in fact, the first two years that I did not operate it a gentleman on the advisory panel who is with HMS, he was the operator of it. But he won the Governor's Cup Billfish Conservation Series between North and South Carolina, and billfish were killed. You know, that's part of it, Conservation Series. So what is the double standard that allows this particular sector to ignore -- to completely ignore the mortality in this fishery and yet takes my permits under those very same, you know, requirements? You know, it's just unfathomable to me how this panel can allow my permits to be taken and would allow me to take the same vessel and go out under a tournament format and kill a big blue marlin, bring it to the dock, and make a couple hundred thousand dollars off of it. That is just unfathomable. That's pretty much -- well, there's one other thing I'd like to say, and since you all have been talking about bi-catch, I'm also a shark longliner. I was lucky enough to keep that permit. You know, I almost lost my bottom fishing permit with the South Atlantic. You know, I mean, you know, we're forced to fish. If you don't use every permit you're going to lose them, and if you do lose them I guess the resource suffers. But somewhere in this whole process something's wrong. But, anyway, the shark laws -- I mean, the shark plan, what does that do? You all talk about reducing bi-catch. Well, all the hell you're doing there is creating it. I mean, the two seasons? What does that do? I mean, if we catch a black tip now we throw it back dead. It's absurd. And the black tip being one of the fastest growing species, as I understand it, ludicrous. The other situation in it, duskies are primary -- you know, one of our favorite targets. We lose that. We're still going to catch them. We just throw them back dead and they get wasted, and you people, you boggle my mind. I'm sorry. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much. Jeff, while you're here make sure if you want to chat with folks about limited entry, catch up with them, okay? Okay. Dewey. MR. HIMELRIGHT: My name is Dewey Himelright. I feel like I'm going through repetition every time I come up here, which I'm sure I am and I'm sure it's for my own good but maybe with self-satisfaction goes a long way with some people. I'm not a vindictive person. I'm just a person out there that's using that resource and I have a price to pay for using that resource, it seems like. The time/area closures will affect part of my fishing but I will not be affected by any boater buyout or anything like that. I see the time/area closures as something that is discriminatory, one-sided, and it just ain't right for using that ocean. I use that ocean with hooks just like the other man or woman uses that ocean with hooks, but it's just something about that commercial man, he's got a price to pay and he pays dearly with it through permits, through reporting. But that's part of it. A lot of things as I sit around here and look at these advisory panel members, I have to take a little time and sit back and think about some of their opinions to the time/area closures. And over the last six months I've read a great deal of propaganda, and this is all my personal -- what I personally believe, not what I'm associated with or anything like this. This is my personal belief of what I do on the ocean and work and who I am. I've read over a great deal of propaganda from numerous individuals or organizations that hide behind the definition of conservation that are advisory panel members. And I would just like to pass this around to show how you get public sentiment to go one way or the other, how you get what one wants by getting the public turned around. And I'm tying this in with how this is the message on the time/area closures that these advisory panel members have elected to do so has also affected by livelihood and it's also Americans better wake up and National Marine Fisheries because there is a resource out there that's owned by everybody in this world, not just 3 percent that can commercial fish or have a chance to do it. How about the other people in Iowa or Texas that don't have a chance to go fishing? National Marine Fishery balks or does not stand up at anything for those people or entities. It just baffles me over and over how one group can be singled out and their livelihoods taken away because somebody else wants this particular area because of a high number of this or a high number of that. When we go look at the data for the high number of this and the high number of that, you see one high number and one low number. It's from the commercial man that uses that ocean. When we go to look at the recreational industry and some people say oh, boy, daggone if he ain't going a good one now, he's all up in an uproar. But it's because it's the truth. When I go out there and go fishing I can't go out and there and go, well, I hope about 50 fish jumps in my boat or maybe not, but it's the things that we have to do and the price we pay for using that resource, and I just feel like and I know that it's wrong what's happened. But I just hope through maybe investigations or maybe through higher authorities or something it can get changed around. I guess it's the only thing to hope for. And for some people that wonder why I get like I do, I read a lot of this stuff -- and I'll pass it around and hopefully would like to get it back. And if you don't want to look at it, fine if you do. But this is stuff that's put out through the public. The top of it says, "Government fights to protect longlining." And I'll pass it around and would just like to get it back if I could. And that's the types of propaganda that's being put out through the public. That's how you get the 10,000 comments. That's how you get it. Pure and simple. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Dewey. Okay, wait. We'll now go to the advisory panel members who have signed up to speak. I think if you each take five minutes we'll have just enough time to wrap it up. Mau, five minutes. MR. CLAVERIE: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Have you spoken? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Oh. A PARTICIPANT: Rebecca -- MS. LENT: Am I missing some slips? A PARTICIPANT: Did you lose my name? MS. LENT: I don't have it. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: I don't have Vince -- come on up, Vince. A PARTICIPANT: Was that by design, Rebecca? MS. LENT: Absolutely not, Vince. Raise your hand if you signed up to sleep -- to sleep -- to speak and I don't have your slip. Vince. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) I get equal time. MS. LENT: Okay. Go, Vince. MR. PYLE: Vince Pyle, fish dealer and boat owner, a southern swordfisherman. I thought we were the only user group that was abused. I realize now that maybe the purse seiner might have a bit of an argument. At least I don't feel alone. User groups being treated equally I think is probably one of the most critical things this panel and this agency can do. I don't know anything about purse seining or the fishery, but if they are being discriminated against while other user groups are being rewarded, I find that an atrocity. I find that the longliners have been put in the spotlight because of the tremendous reporting that we have always done. I look at all the user groups in HMS and I can't find any data on effort, I can't find any data on their effect of mortality, but we can find specific exact data on the longliners. Every bit of the data seems to have been used against us, I know is used against us. Time/area closures, in my opinion, I am inherently against. I don't -- and I say that and then I think we all are because it's hard for us who get no recognition for having reduced 30-some percent our juvenile swordfish in the last decade. We get no recognition for the 40-some percent reduction in illegal sized dead discards, and yet we have to hear the reports that Spain actually reports 40-some percent of their landings to (inaudible) illegal size swordfish. So when we want to talk about how we can further helped the swordfish, we want to cut off 100,000 square miles of the ocean or better to the U.S. swordfisherman in hopes of conservation, I can't help but say that I don't believe it will be effective. I don't believe it will be effective unless we can somehow learn to manage the species as the highly migratory species they are. Nelson spoke about a billfish and people laughed, but I believe that that culture will never throw away a fish that's caught. I don't think it will ever happen. I think we are probably one of the only countries in the world that will discard a wholesome food product. I think my father would roll over in his grave if he knew that I had to discard so much wholesome food. But with that said, the leaders of my industry are trying to wrestle and do the right thing and figure out how to better manage such a highly migratory species. Well, knowing that our European counterparts are never going to buy into regulatory discards, maybe it's minimum sizes truthfully are not going to work. So maybe time/area closures of so-called nursery grounds avoiding the interaction is the best way to go. I too voted for the time/area closure in the Blue Water plan. I'm a multiple vessel owner and I deal with 20 of the 47 people on the list. It's not an exciting thing. I make an okay living. I wish we would close someplace else. But if it's really going to do that much good for the remaining industry and, more importantly, that much good for managing the stock globally, then reluctantly myself and many that I represent are behind it. I don't think it's the first choice of mine but as I've worked hard on it I think it's possibly the best way to go. Now, I have to ask a question, Rebecca, and I didn't understand all of the tables that were put up today, which I was glad to see that a lot of Ph.D.s here scratched their head too, can I ask a simple question? When do you plan on putting a time/area closure in effect, the agency? MS. LENT: We have a goal of trying to get a time/area closure in effect by September the 1st. That's something that we committed to in the plan. That's going to depend on how much research and input and clear guidance and answers are going to come out of these analyses, Vince. MR. PYLE: So your goal then is to put a time/area closure in effect no matter what the industry and some of the recreational groups such as the Billfish Foundation and some of the other organizations have been working with the industry to try to come up with a most effective time/area closure which would compensate those that were the most dramatically affected? The agency then, I understand, is -- that's not as important as coming up with something by September 1st? MS. LENT: Again, we welcome and would embrace a buyback program tied in with the time/area closure. We also have a mandate under Magnuson-Stevens to address bi-catch. We're going to continue working on it. We hope that by being your best friend, by coming forth with a proposed rule package that analyzes all the impacts and says, look, here's one way to mitigate it with a buyout, that that is a good salvo to Capitol Hill, which I'm not allowed to do but which will help move this along so it converges to a solution. Hope so. MR. PYLE: I was unaware that my specific gear type is the only in the country that has bi-catch, so the mandate to address bi-catch being -- and must be done by September 1 seems to me like we're singling out a specific group. I think there is bi-catch that needs to be addressed in all fisheries in this country and I think your mandate addresses that you address bi-catch in all fisheries. And I don't see September 1 being proposed to any other fishery. MS. LENT: Vince, we're running a little short on time, if you can wrap it up. Thanks. MR. PYLE: That was a fast four minutes. If we need to go forward, I ask every member here on the council to do it a logical way. I would hope that we don't have to end up in court and jumping off what we've worked hard to achieve and going after the agency. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Vince. David Wilmot, did you want to speak at this time? Do you want to take four minutes? MR. WILMOT: I think I've had my opportunity to speak. MS. LENT: Okay. Irby, I got a sheet for you here. MR. BASCO: Thank you, Rebecca. I'll take my (inaudible) that I'm a recreational angler. I've heard a lot of comments today. This is pertaining to the billfish. Comments today about, of course, realize that commercial entities here are hardworking people, but the people in the billfish -- for recreational billfish are hardworking people as well. You ask any boat captain or deck hand, any service organization, yacht repair person, boat builders, there is quite bit of activity there that lends to the economy. Billfishing is for recreational for also catch-and-release is a lot of fun, but there is also a lot of -- there's a lot of money spent and there's a lot of work involved in that. There is an organization that we belong to called IGFA. I'm sure you all have heard of it. It's the world's recordkeepers. With the implementation of the length of the billfish, the blue marlin especially for 99 inches, the light-line anglers, which I am real close to one of them, I've followed her around all over the world trying to catch some world records, will be affected by this. In other words, any fish that's 99 inches, a blue marlin, will probably weigh close to 300 pounds so that eliminates the two-four pound -- six -- two, four, six, eight, and possibly the 12-pound test effort to try to get a world's record. And in 11 years of world record fishing, the person I'm speaking of has killed two blue marlin. One of them was in the Pacific and one was in the Atlantic. So at any rate, I just want everybody to consider that the recreational angler is actually taking a hit as well on the proposed billfish amendment as well as some of the other items in the other HMS plans. So at any rate, I just want to, you know, make people aware that we are taking a hit too as well, as you all are, and I just want you to consider that in your thoughts. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Irby. And recreational billfish fisherman are also very good singers, as I discovered when I was in Texas recently. Okay. Rusty Hudson. MR. HUDSON: Rusty Hudson with directed shark. Basically I just want to touch on a couple of the many points that I'm concerned about on shark. I'm going to read from page 29,130 of the final rule that went out May 28th. The paragraph on the bottom left-hand side starts, "In summary, the final regulatory flexibility analysis found that overall the final actions for bluefin tuna and swordfish rebuilding in the bluefin tuna time/area closure may have some negative economic impact." And if I may ad lib, any quotas associated with those two fisheries are under the perusal of a lot of international scientists. In addition, the combination of final actions for sharks, quota reductions, minimum sizes, retention limits, and counting dead discards in state landings after federal closures against federal quotas may result in the elimination of the directed commercial fisheries for large coastal sharks and may substantially impact commercial fisheries for pelagic sharks and small coastal sharks in the U.S. EEZ. In addition because these regs will have a significant impact on commercial fishermen, the HMS FMP will likely also impact related parties and communities such as processors, bait and gear suppliers. Basically speaking, that science is generated solely by NMFS chosen scientists and no international or independent scientists are basically involved in this process at this time when they need to be. We have put duskie on the protected species category in '96 and '97. I just received the three texts on Monday, but I found the reference that 14,000 duskies are killed by the recreational in '96 and in '97. Now that those are protected species, you're basically creating a bald eagle for the recreational to become criminals. Furthermore, 20 percent of those duskies tagged off the northeast have been returned from Mexico, but if you read the essential fish habitat's conclusions and documentation that was conducted by Jose Castro, duskies, sandbars, nursery grounds, none of the above exists in the western Gulf of Mexico nor do adult black tips. I find this a problem. I pointed it out to Dr. Matlock two -- actually three AP meetings ago, the EFH people. They never bothered to take some of Stewart Springer's stuff, Compagnio's stuff or anything else, and include it. Now, the other thing I am going to touch on without going into all that other stuff is on page 29,144. Under sharks, section (e), it says that the minimum size for the three allowable sharks under the ridgeback category, which is sandbar, silky, and tiger, will be 54 inches, 137 centimeter fork length. But if the head and the fins have been removed, they have now created a new measurement, 30 inches, 76 centimeters, from the first dorsal fin or cartilage int the spine of the dorsal ridge mount that's left to either thee precaudal pit or to the posterior edge of the carcass. I have asked -- I have not received -- documentation of where that 30 inch measure comes from. Does it accurately correlate with the 137-centimeter length for the fork length measurement for live animal and, if so, is that true in all three cases of the sandbar, the silky, and the tiger, or are we going to make more criminals out of people that are a half inch off or something? Thank you. MS. LENT: Okay, thank you, Rusty. Anybody else on the panel who would like to intervene? Bob. MR. SPAETH: Bob Spaeth, Southern Offshore Fishing Association. I guess Rusty brought up the point and it's been a big stickler in my craw. I think in the swordfish, tuna, and anybody in highly migratory species why is the United States of America disadvantaging, and i.e., I say its fishermen, while other countries are allowed to harvest the same species unabated? And I use Mexico and Cuba on sharks and the only thing that we were told here is that we should lead the way. Well, I'm tired of leading the way and I think a lot of other people are tired of leading the way. I think there is a provision in the Magnuson Act somewhere that says that our U.S. fishermen should not be more disadvantaged than foreign fishermen, and I would hope somebody would look into that if we continue on this process of disadvantaging our people here on the highly migratory species. Thank you. MS. LENT: Thank you, Bob. Nelson. MR. BEIDEMAN: Nelson Beideman, Blue Water Fisherman's Association. A couple of things, Rebecca. For one thing, I would like to reflect on some of the remarks that Vince Pyle had made. At the recent Blue Water annual meeting we had two and a half days of absolute gut-wrenching deliberations on everything that's been taking place. I was very, very proud of the group. In the end, there was a unanimous vote as far as the closed area buyout proposal to move forward. Not everybody in this fishery agrees with that vote and that position, but an organization representing the majority of the participants is moving in that direction. I'm very proud of that. Another thing, Rebecca, I do have the full runs now of the live versus dead bait and I'll give you a copy of those runs so that we can have copies for discussions tomorrow. And Ellen may want a copy tonight. I only have two copies but -- A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. BEIDEMAN: Yeah, and have Bill get some copies and anyone that wants to look at it tonight. And last thing, I would like to go on record once again in opposition to the purse seine cap. MS. LENT: Thank you, Nelson. We have a few more minutes. Anybody in the back of the room that wants to speak that didn't get a chance? A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MS. LENT: Leonard. Go ahead and introduce yourself, Leonard. MR. INGRANDE: Yes, my name is Leonard Ingrande. I have been fishing for quite a while. I started in 1943 and I want to find out why it is that the National Marine Fisheries Service keeps attacking us the way they do. I'm just having a hard time with it. And my question is to you, Rebecca. What is the position of your opinion on how this should run? I mean, we talked to the advisory panel, they give their opinions. And the first I heard about a cap was a few months ago. We never discussed it at the scoping meetings. We've never done any of this. I'm a very poor speaker at public speaking. That's why I prefer to write. I just never had a thing for it. In 1943 I started fishing during World War II and then in 1950 I volunteered for the armed services during the Korean conflict. I've fished every year since then. I've made my livelihood from it. And I volunteered for the armed services because I figured that was the right thing to do for my country. When I attended the meetings at ICCAT I watched NMFS manipulate, take cheap shots at us, and embarrass the American government by rulemaking in the weird places. I was invited to Washington more than once to talk on a one-on-one and the director walked out of the meeting to interview a secretary. Being Bill Gordon, Bob Ahrens (phonetic) at the time. Enough is enough. I've been abused, attacked, and in this document called a secondhand citizen. That's what I was called. Anybody here fishing more than 55 years? Stand up, please. You're pretty close to my age, maybe a little younger. All right. There's one back there. Fine. He deserves to be heard. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. INGRANDE: Okay, fine. So I'm just saying that these (inaudible). A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. INGRANDE: Okay. You've been fishing, so you have an opinion to speak. I have my opinion to speak here. I am tired, sick and tired, of the abuse against the seiners. I was hoping that this cap I hope stops. And I'll put it in a letter form to you or in another form. Yes, Jimmy. A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.) MR. INGRANDE: I know your question. Go ahead. A PARTICIPANT: Leonard, I asked Joey this question before I know he's not directly involved with the purse seine. Being that you're the owner of a purse seine vessel, do you feel if this cap was implemented would your effort increase on the yellowfin fishery? MR. INGRANDE: Do I feel that? No. A PARTICIPANT: No. MR. INGRANDE: I think this cap was put in by -- wait, maybe I don't quite understand the question. But the yellowfin, Jimmy, is not the primary thing to me because right now the price of yellowfin tuna on the world market is next to nothing except on the domestic market you get a nice dollar for it. I have restrained from fishing yellowfin tuna but I have no guarantee from that lady sitting two seats over from you that next year or the year after this they implement laws because I didn't participate in the fishery I'm out. I left the yellowfin alone and I gave -- I told you I would. It didn't pay to go. I try to keep the peace. I've always tried to keep the peace. Roger Hillhouse behind me, we donated our time and our effort in the time when Bob Ahrens was the director of some kind. This watch here was given to me by the Canadian Tuna Company. It's a gold watch. And they told me if I would steal fish and send them back to Canada they'd give me a gold Cadillac. Well, the Canadian tuna boats got just that, golden Cadillacs. And they stole that fish off the coast of New Jersey. This young fellow here was a baby at the time. When did you start, Nelson? MR. BEIDEMAN: I was seven years old. MR. INGRANDE: Who was Jum-jum (phonetic)? MR. BEIDEMAN: (Inaudible.) MR. INGRANDE: Who was Jum-jum? Do you remember the names of the boats? Okay, and they took this fish and took it to Canada. They had a 350-ton quota. They took 5,000 tons. I gave those numbers to Steve Turner eight years ago on 16th Avenue. It was never brought to the records. I listed little scraps up on the wall of the National Marine Fisheries Service. It's all bogus. Those are not factual. The Canadian government which went into the record as 350 tons was 5,000. But blame the small seiners. We got blamed for everything. And we sat back and live and let live, help and try to help. National Marine Fishery failed me. I went to war, received these scars, and then they fail me today. MS. LENT: Leonard, can you take about another minute and wrap it up? Thank you. MR. INGRANDE: I'm through. I've been done for years. MS. LENT: Thank you. Just quickly one more comment. Gail, then we're going to have to wrap up for the day and get ready for tomorrow. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Leonard is a hard act to follow here. I just wanted to say that not particularly at this advisory panel meeting but from things like Dewey passed around, it's getting difficult to be made to feel like less than a human for using a particular gear type, and I sympathize with the seiners here. And I repeat again, once more, that it isn't necessary the gear but the operator that determines the catch and the disposition of that catch. Longliners are about as bashed as the purse seiners. I appreciate what the purse seiners have done. I do not want to see a cap on them and I wish us all luck tomorrow in our discussions. MS. LENT: Okay, thank you very much, Gail. And on that note, I will remind everybody we start tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock with a discussion on the purse seine cap. HMS AP members here at 8:00 a.m. Billfish, if you want, you can join us. Otherwise, we'll see you at the coffee break at 9:30. Have a nice evening. (The meeting was adjourned.) * * * * *