House Passes Bill to Amend
the Marine Mammal Protection Act
On Monday, July 17, 2006 the House of
Representatives approved the highly anticipated bill (H.R. 4075) to
amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The MMPA was enacted
in 1972 to protect marine mammal species at risk of depletion. The
bill, introduced by Rep. Pombo originally contained provisions that
would weaken the MMPA. Although the final version of the bill which
passed in the House still contains some damaging changes, Rep. Pombo
made some unexpected improvements to the bill just before its passage.
The original version of H.R. 4075 contained
negative amendments to vital bycatch deadlines and weakened
protections for animals used in research and those kept in captivity.
Some Good Changes to the Bill
Last minute changes to the bill maintained the
deadlines for the Zero Rate Mortality Goal, which states that
commercial and recreational fisheries must reduce the number of
whales, dolphins, manatees, seals, and other marine animals that are
unintentionally caught. Although the deadline officially expired
in 2001, it is important to keep working towards reducing bycatch to
zero.
Beneficial changes were also made to the Pinniped
Research section of the MMPA. Pinnipeds are seals, sea lions and
walruses. The
Act now requires the Secretary of the Interior to research non-lethal
pinniped control methods and also allows independent marine mammal
research institutions to have a role in this research. Under the new
provisions conservation groups and others with scientific expertise
are also allowed into the research group.
Protections were also provided to polar bears in
the final version of the bill. The new provision prohibits the import
or export of polar bear gall bile or gall bladder. The provision
follows the newly passed US-Russia Polar Bear Treaty which limits
hunting of polar bears to subsistence hunts, provides quotas for those
hunts and establishes an American-Russian commission charged with
analyzing how best to sustain the polar bear habitat. One
possible downside to this amendment is that
it
minimizes the input of the US delegation and gives Native groups
greater power which could limit the amount of protection offered to
the polar bears.
The Bad
Changes to the Bill
The damaging amendments that made it through to
the final bill and which were passed relate to changes to the
standards for marine mammals in captivity. These include animals kept
in public aquaria and those kept in research facilities, such as the
Research Corporation of University of Hawai'i. The University and its
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee were recently fined
$65,000 by the US Department of Agriculture for violations of the
Animal Welfare Act over conditions at the now-closed Kewalo Basin
Marine Mammal Lab where four dolphins died in a 30-month period.
The MMPA changes which the House passed now make it possible for private
enterprises to ‘own’ cetaceans held in public facilities. This is
dramatically different than the earlier version of the MMPA in which
animals belonged to the public and the facilities merely cared for the
animals as custodians. This is significant as it provides affirmation
to many in the captivity industry that whales, dolphins and other
marine mammals are merely commodities under their direct control and
not entitles in the public domain under their temporary stewardship.
The bill has now been moved to the
Senate for consideration.
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