respect to behavior which can drastically alter the behavior of an entire population in a short time, with possible profound implications for its future survival.

We believe that our very limited knowledge of marine ecosystems and the population dynamics of marine mammals makes it necessary not only to set aside funds for study, but to set aside a period when the animals will not be subjected to molestation, in order to minimize random interference which will confuse results of studies. Senator Williams. has a 10-year moratorium on killing in his bill, which would help insure conditions for meaningful studies.

A particularly cogent argument for at least a 10-year moratorium resides in the poisoning and ecological disruptions noted. The reproductive interference showing up in California sea lions and possibly in Stellar sea lions and Pribilof seals may yet parallel the situation which has developed in brown pelicans and certain other avians, and now seriously threatens their survival.

We must permit all of these mammals to retain maximum genetic variability to meet such threats, while monitoring the populations carefully to detect increasing pollutant concentrations.

It is especially important that rare and endangered species be left entirely alone. The bowhead whale is subjected annually to Native attacks off Port Barrow, in which three or four whales are wounded and eventually die for every one captured. There is no reason at all why the faltering comeback of this rare species should be so jeopardized. These attacks should be absolutely terminated.

We strongly support a ban on imports of all marine mammal products. It would be astonishingly hypocritical to restrict U.S. citizens from killing marine mammals, while permitting U.S. commercial interests to subsidize such activities on the part of foreign nationals. Burgeoning U.S. markets have helped bring about the depletion, and even extinction, of many species over the past two centuries.

In London last week, we had an illustration of this kind of indirect effect. The British delegation proved far more intransigent and oriented toward exploitation than the delegations of Norway, which plans a sealing expedition to Antarctica very soon, and those of Russia and Japan. This was doubtless related to the fact that the British fur industry processes the bulk of Norwegian kills and makes more money, at less risk, than do the Norwegians.

At the present time, the decimation of the harp seal herds off Canada and Jan Mayen Island have left gaps in the supply, which the British and Norwegians evidently hope to fill by exploiting Antarctic seals.

British conservationists are now suggesting that if the British Government is as purely motivated on behalf of the seals as it claims. to be, it might be nice to institute a ban on importation of Antarctic products.

A ban on any participation in exploitation of Antarctic fauna by Americans, combined with instructions to the State Department to attempt to negotiate a marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters, might appropriately be inserted in this legislation.

I believe that it is imperative that our Government vigorously pursue negotiations toward achieving marine sanctuaries, free of taking and of activity which might produce pollution, not only in

Antarctica, but in northern waters, especially the Bering Sea and the Davis Strait. The rich blooms of krill which appear during the austral and Arctic summers are basic to the existence of vast host of marine forms, including many cetaceans and pinnipeds. Major interference with these enormously productive but fragile ecosystems would be absolutely disastrous.

The marine-sanctuary concept could perhaps be applied on a local scale in U.S. territorial or inland waters, such as are inhabited by hard pressed manatees and southern sea otters.

We understand that specific suggestions concerning means of dealing with the tunafishing problem are being proposed by Mrs. Christine Stevens and by Mr. Poole. We strongly endorse these approaches. We would like to submit separate written testimony concerning the abuse of dolphins and other marine mammals in oceanaria with suggested guidelines for their protection.

Mr. Chairman, marine mammals are in difficulty, not because we have failed to manage them, but because we have failed to manage ourselves. We are the ones who are in need of management. If we cannot halt the proliferation of new humans, restrain our nihilistic technology, curb our blind aggressiveness and destructiveness, the oceans will not remain viable, the creatures here being discussed will not survive, and neither, very probably, will we.

I believe that outcome will be dependent finally not on the development of scientific knowledge, however important that may be, but on the universal adoption of an ethic embodying a modicum of reverence for all life.

I hope that this legislation will not be without the expression and embodiment of such an ethic.

Senator HOLLINGS. How do you get that ethic without the scientific knowledge. We have been trying to get the attention around this town. We got the ocean pollution bill.

This is an excellent statement. We can't get this crowd into the oceans though. They are running around with all kinds of emergency employment bills. You can pass a billion dollars over there on the floor this afternoon for what they would call public service or emergency employment to do away with unemployment figures, but to actually go into the oceans and employ these people for this work, they have no concept. As a result the coastal zone which has the sanctuary provision in it and the bill that Senator Stevens and I worked on is in the House in committee with a sanctuary provision in it.

But I am trying to find out from your expertise, how do you get their attention? You can't go around selling ethics, Billy Graham and all these others got to scare 'em to death on Sunday, that is the only way they do it.

Mr. GARRETT. I think you will agree that there is already enough scientific evidence available to scare us, if we take note of it. Senator HOLLINGS. You think so?

Mr. GARRETT. To emphasize the point that something is badly the matter with ecosystems in the marine area.

Senator HOLLINGS. You think we have the expertise?

Mr. GARRETT. I think it is a matter of getting the information to the public and getting it to the Congress. I think we have quite

a bit and we are getting more all the time. We need vastly more study. We don't have much specific knowledge, but we do have indications that something is badly wrong.

For example, the heavy metal concentrations showing up in so many marine mammals. These mammals of course represent parameters of the decline, as Miss Herrington called it, of the health of

the oceans.

Senator HOLLINGS. And therein, really, there will be more dying from pollution than from hunting. You were talking in here about the 10-year moratorium proposed by Senator Williams.

What scientific basis do you have for that? Why not 5 or 15? Why 10?

Mr. GARRETT. I will have to confess that is an arbitrary figure. I don't think it could be possible to get the results of detailed studies, in less than 10 years. It might take longer than that. Granted some significant results may be had in 5 years, but it is obviously going to take time to develop and collate the results. I don't think any of these bills have anything like enough funding for research or enough emphasis on research.

Senator HOLLINGS. We do need more.

Mr. GARRETT. I think so.

Senator HOLLINGS. In London last week, that wasn't secret as far as you are concerned.

Mr. GARRETT. I was there, yes, and I am perfectly free to talk. The British Secretary didn't think so at the time. He complained to Ambassador McKernan. He said I was stirring up the British conservationists.

Senator HOLLINGS. You would, if you could, wouldn't you?

Mr. GARRETT. As soon as the conference was over, I attempted to stir them up, or at least conferred with them on what happened. Senator HOLLINGS. Maybe you can clear up the statement previously about killing of the baby seals. Do you know? I understand from the Ambassador that wasn't the case.

Mr. GARRETT. I spent two hours talking to Dr. Oerlitson who runs the Norwegian marine mammal program, and who went to Antarctica in 1964 on an experimental sealing expedition in which he took 1,000 seals. He admits they are thinking of taking baby seals. They are particularly interested in the white ones, baby Weddells and

crabeaters.

Senator HOLLINGS. Would the treaty allow that?

Mr. GARRETT. Unfortunately the Antarctic Treaty does not apply to the marine areas. Article 6 indicates that high seas freedom will not be abridged in any way.

Senator HOLLINGS. Out on the high seas they can take the baby seals.

Mr. GARRETT. Right. Some of them are on the shore, and on the fast ice attached to the shelf ice, but most of them are found on the ice floes, so-called pack ice. They are not protected at all under the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty.

Senator HOLLINGS. What you are saying then is slightly different from what we heard previously. You believe these countries are not so ready, willing and able to come around to treaties. In fact the British delegation is going along with the Norwegian catch?

Mr. GARRETT. The supply of harp and hooded seal pelts, especially the baby harp seal pelts is declining. That kill is declining. Most of these pelts are used by the British fur industry. The kill has been reduced in the St. Lawrence Gulf, and the Canadian Sealing Board is recommending that the kill off Labrador as well as the gulf, be phased out. In the meantime, the kill of harp and hooded seals off Jan Mayen island has been reduced drastically. This is the first year the Norwegians have had quotas.

It is obvious the British will be hurting for enough pelts to fill their markets. I think they are pushing the Norwegians in this matter. I didn't see any evidence that the Russians or Japanese were planning to go down immediately. But there is no question that the Reba Fur Co. of Bergen, Norway is thinking of going down.

Senator STEVENS. Let me ask you this, we are now raising the question of the experiment of John Lindberg, and in Hawaii and in Alaska of raising salmon in pens. They are going to be completely domesticated in the sense the pens will be moved. I am sure you read

of this.

What would your organization do if we started that with fur seals, walruses, and other mammals?

Mr. GARRETT. Well, as an individual it would be hard for me to take this. I do hate to see animals as highly evolved as these animals are, penned up in that manner.

Senator STEVENS. I agree with you, but I wanted your response. There seems to be a definite distinction between demonstration and our right to use them to sustain man, and those left in the wild state where they are actually better off.

I wonder if you have examined that proposition. If we have a human demand for these animals, we will domesticate them; is that what you want to see us do?

Mr. GARRETT. No. Do we have that much requirement for, say, walrus, or for pinniped in this country?

Senator STEVENS. You may not have but some of my people do.

In terms of their livelihood, the Eskimo people that I have talked to tend to get ill if they try to make the transition between their food and the food you and I would prefer. Assuming that that is so, and assuming we are heading towards the proposition of a prohibition against taking animals in wild state, aren't we going toward the same thing?

Mr. GARRETT. No. I think all these bills have provisions for Native taking. I will have to be frank. I would rather see an animal, such as walrus, if it must be killed, be killed in its normal habitat rather than to be confined in some manner of pen.

In any case, it has been demonstrated that walrus can't survive long in captivity. A few zoos are trying it, but as a general rule they can't be raised that way. I would rather see them killed in their natural habitat. It seems to me that Native taking is comparatively minor, and the thing to do is eliminate the wastefulness.

While you were out, I did read a paragraph about Bowhead whales. I certainly can't subscribe to the killing of Bowhead whales by anyone at this stage.

Senator STEVENS. Despite the testimony we have, that it is the one mammal on the increase.

Mr. GARRETT. During the House hearings Mr. Burns of the Alaska Game and Fish Department stated that the current rate of kill, could not be sustained. He cited a ratio of 5 to 1, five Bowhead whales injured and perhaps dying for every one taken. I got this three or four to one figure from Dale Rice who made a study of Bowhead whales off Barrow. But it is clear certainly that this is very wasteful killing, and even the International Whaling Commissionthere is no sorrier example of a conservation group-even the commission protects Bowhead whales.

It seems most unfortunate that we are permitting a species, which is fairly close to extinction, to be taken in this manner. The Bowhead whale population which used to summer in the Davis Strait has been apparently extirpated by Greenland Eskimoes in recent years.

Senator STEVENS. The chairman says we must protect bullheads like me. I take it your position basically is that the United States should take the lead in bringing about a prohibition as to taking of marine mammals. In view of what you know about the feelings in the other nations, do you think that is realistic?

Mr. GARRETT. I don't think we can achieve any total prohibition of the taking. But I do think we have some chance over a course of time, if we negotiate vigorously, of developing some kind of international marine sanctuary concept. One thing that is really terrifying is the though of a big oil spill in the northern areas. We should be pushing for marine sanctuaries constantly, and I think we must strive hard to get a moratorium on the taking of all whales. There is no more disgraceful chapter in the history of the human depredation than the destruction of the great whales, primarily by the Japanese and Russians.

Senator STEVENS. I am constrained to say that the only chance of an oil spill is if we are forced to transport oil by water instead of by pipeline.

Senator HOLLINGS. And that is another committee and another hearing. Let's don't start that one.

Mr. Garrett, I appreciate very much your statement this afternoon. It is a big help to the committee. We will stay in touch with you. Mr. GARRETT. Thanks a million.

Senator HOLLINGS. Thank you.

The next witness is Mr. Robert Hughes of the Sierra Club.

Is this one of the friends of Stevens? Did Senator Stevens quote you earlier or was that the Isaac Walton League, or is there a difference?

STATEMENT OF ROBERT HUGHES, WILDLIFE AND ENDANGERED SPECIES COMMITTEE, SIERRA CLUB, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. HUGHES. I don't think he quoted us.

Senator HOLLINGS. We will be glad to hear from you, sir. Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Chairman, my name is Robert Hughes, I am the chairman of the Sierra Club's National Wildlife Committee.

The Sierra Club, a dynamic environmental organization with over 140,000 members, was founded in 1892 to help people explore, enjoy, and protect wildlands and wildlife and to preserve and restore the