140. The third question [by the United States], "does existence of all these threats make it more or less important to prevent sea turtles mortality in shrimp trawlers?" Evidently, I haven't been clear, I would have thought that my comments had made it clear that the more sources of mortality we have, the more risks these animals are under, the more we have to use every possible means to reduce mortality. Liew in his comments, at some point said that it's necessary to reduce all sources of mortality. Again we don't know enough. If I could sit here very cooly and say, "Gentlemen, this population is this big, the sources of mortality are here, its rates of recruitment are this, this source of mortality is therefore unimportant and we can ignore it", if I could do that, it would be a different sort of situation, but I cannot. I don't have that information, I don't believe anyone does. The fourth question [by the United States], "do the experts agree that TEDs when properly installed and used reduce the mortality of sea turtles?" I thought that was clear, yes. I thought as far I understand there is a consensus that if they're installed and used properly they reduce mortality. I have tried to address this also in the Annex. [Annex 1 to the report] A TED is not a piece of magic, it's simply, a BED "a bycatch excluder device". Now fisheries biologists don't use that [term] so much, they use more BRD which is a bycatch reduction device, but it is simply a way of removing some part of what is caught in the net from the net. In the fisheries biology discussions you will often see discussions of the need for fisheries techniques to be more selective. More selective means, I'm going to target this species because I want to catch it, because I want to eat it, because I want to sell it. Therefore everything else that could be affected by my fishing activities has to be left out of it. A BED is a way of making a trawl more selective, perhaps less unselective. A TED is a modified BED, a modified BRD, which is designed to remove sea turtles from a trawl net. It's very simple, it's a sort of filter, I'm sure you have seen drawings of them, the grid TED, the one you developed in Thailand, the Thai Turtle Free Device or the Georgia Jumper or the Super Shooter or the AusTED, simply acts as a filter. It permits small things, like prawns and fish, to pass through and large things like a turtle can't pass through and is pushed up. If it is a top-shooter it goes up through the top; if it is a bottom-shooter, it goes through the bottom. The concept of a TED is very simple. There are problems, people need to learn how to use them as with any kind of equipment. There was a question in here, does the level of education affect the way a fisherman works. Fishermen may not have a formal education; they may not have doctorates, but fishermen are people who have a tremendous amount of practical experience, if they are professional fisherman. They are people who, I think, most of us here respect greatly when we work with them. So, I don't think formal education is a matter of concern. These are people who learn by experience. If the fisherman is shown how the instrument works with a gear technician and given time to work with it, I don't see any reason why he can't learn how to use it. He has to learn how to use it, definitely, but he also has to learn to use his winches, he has to learn how to use all the instruments he uses on his boat. It's part of the equipment.

141. "If all the world's shrimp trawlers use TEDs would this contribute to the reduction to the threat to the sea turtles ...?" [question 5 by the United States] Again, I would have thought that at least my own comments have made this clear. I would like to explain perhaps why I have troubled you all with yet more papers, with an Annex on bycatch. To me this issue is a bycatch issue. When we are talking about turtles caught in shrimp trawls, we are talking about a bycatch problem. They are there because they are bycatch. Therefore, the whole issue of bycatch is relevant, it fits within that complex of problems. As I have tried to indicate in my written comments, a TED is a BED, it's a modified bycatch excluder device which is designed to remove turtles. Depending on the design of the TED, you can also remove other unwanted elements from the trawl nets, and that can include, depending on the way you design your TED, that can include other species of animals which are being negatively impacted by shrimp trawling. My strategy as a conservation biologist now takes me outside of biology and technical aspects into the realm of dealing with people and indeed impacting political decisions. My vision as a conservation biologist is that TEDs could be an important first step in showing fishermen that they have to be more selective. So, I would take question 5 [by the United States] and say that this focus is too narrow for me. I would say that TEDs indeed, not only are important for reducing catch of sea turtles, but for dealing with this very, very grave problem we have with bycatch and showing the way to open up methods for getting fishermen to be more selective. Bottom trawls are notoriously damaging to the environment, the history of bottom trawling in tropical countries is a very sad history. I have mentioned in the Annex that there are civil movements, there are organizations of fishermen from the Third World, from developing countries who are calling for a ban on bottom trawlers. This is a very, very serious situation. These people feel that their lives have been impacted negatively by bottom trawling; their gear has been destroyed, their sources of livelihood have been destroyed by bottom trawling. I know that fisheries officers in many countries, not publicly but among themselves, would be much happier to get rid of bottom trawling. It's not going to happen quickly, if it happens at all, but certainly one way to move towards making this very damaging fishing technique less damaging is to start implementing more selective ways of fishing. One of those is to get TEDs in the nets and show the fishermen that they can't continue this way, you have got to be more selective. I was talking with Liew yesterday, I am in total agreement with him. They are fishing with nets that are so closed, the mesh sizes are so closed that virtually nothing gets through. I am surprised they can even advance in the water, it is like they have a tube which is almost closed. They are catching all the larvae, this can't go on indefinitely. We have seen that FAO and I believe, Thai fisheries experts, have estimated that the demersal stocks in the Gulf of Thailand are now 10 per cent of what they were when trawling began 30 years ago. We are in a desperate situation and this is much bigger than sea turtles, we are seeing the tip of the iceberg. I am very clear, this is the tip of the iceberg. If we can deal with sea turtles in such a way that it will give us momentum to solve these other bycatch problems, I think this will be a major contribution to fisheries management. The sixth question [by the United States]: will prizes be given out?

Mr. Chairman

142. Only if you get to the end!

Dr. Frazier

143. "Dr. Poiner and Mr. Guinea mentioned time and area closures are helpful ..." [question 6 by the United States] Yes, that's definitely true; they are helpful. Do we have enough knowledge to identify potential "hot spots." Again, I sincerely believe that the way Australians manage their fisheries is something we should all learn from. Ian Poiner and I had a discussion on record yesterday; he clarified that effort is essential, that simply limited entry doesn't have all the answers and later on we discussed this further. I am still convinced that the Australians are way ahead of the rest of us, they have, Ian was explaining to me, 120 vessels in the northern prawn trawling area and 1,100 to 1,200 licences in the eastern fishery, not all of which are fishing. If we could only deal with such a small number of vessels, it would be much easier to manage. I don't believe any of us here, any of the countries assembled here, has a fishing management programme as well set up as that. We are dealing with thousands of vessels. I will let him explain to you what they are doing, it's marvellous. They are going to be able to monitor where the vessels are, on real time, to be able to actually communicate with them. They can do magnificent things in that fishery. We were talking here about, I believe, another situation, other fisheries which are extremely large. I don't see how we can possibly pretend to enforce time and area closures without tremendous amounts of investment in vessels which will be out there looking for this. The indications I see in FAO documents, written by or about, for example, some of the Malaysian fisheries officers, lead me to believe that they are very concerned with area closures, with the zoning. There is one report by Hilmi, which I mentioned in the Annex here, there is another report from Ali, the way they are expressed I see concern that they are not confident that they are getting exclusion from that 5 kilometres. At one point it says, I believe, fishing will go on unless enforcement vessels are seen: why would you stop fishing if an enforcement came along, unless you were doing something that was against the law. If you were in the right place and an enforcement vessels comes along, what difference should it make to you. We know classically that area closures in fisheries with large numbers of vessels are very, very difficult. I know that Thailand also has excellent laws. The laws in both Malaysia and Thailand, I believe are very well thought out to provide area closures, zoning. I am not convinced that the trawlers are respecting this. Everything I read makes me think the opposite. I see that there is concern indeed in some of the documentation, which I believe was provided in Thailand. There is a discussion of why are the trawlers coming into the coastal areas. It's normal, it's human nature as Daniel Pauly has pointed out - this man is one of deans of fisheries biology in South East Asia.

144. In general shrimp are coastal species, shrimp and prawns occur along the coast. Ian Poiner was explaining to me yesterday, in Australia, they target them, he can explain it much better than I can. They do terrestrial phenomena for nutrients, nutrients come from terrestrial phenomena, nutrients coming down rivers in catchment areas. This means that they will be in coastal areas, where those nutrients are most concentrated. Certain sorts of habitats such as sea grass and types of bottom, will not be long distances from the coast in general. That means that if you want to catch prawns you have to come close. When you come close, you come inside the zones where they have been to told to stay out. When you do that you cause conflicts with a small-scale coastal fisherman. The documentation of conflicts, of civil strife, caused by trawling in the tropics especially in South East Asia, there are libraries full of this. There are grave, grave social problems caused by trawling, by trawlers coming inside these coastal areas. The laws are very well thought out, but I don't see the trawlers are respecting them. There is such a pressure to get prawns from the coastal area and they are coming inside. I cannot provide you with studies, I don't believe such studies exist. What I see in the FAO documentation and in the reports of the experts from these different countries make me very concerned that they are also very worried about infringements in coastal areas.

145. The time closures, unless we are talking about long periods of time, will often produce what is called "pulse fishing": I will allow you to fish this period and that period and then this period you cannot fish. By human nature the most likely thing is the effort which Ian Poiner talked about yesterday. The effort will increase just before the closure, so that I can catch as much as possible before they stop me and the moment they let me start again the effort will be very, very intense. This may mean then that all the animals that were not impacted during the time closure are subjected to a very, very intense effort just before and just after. So, time closure has to be looked at with great care if it's really going to work, simply legislating a time closure and pretending it's working is not necessarily going to work.

146. "Do we have enough knowledge to identify potential hot spots?" [Question 6 by the United States] No, we don't. This seventh question has been dealt with. Then I will finish with TEDs which will take 6 to 8 years [to implement]. Australia has been working through voluntary implementation which I have tried to explain in my written submission, which I firmly believe is the best way to go: to work with the fisherman, in terms of community based conservation. However, where you have fisheries which are extremely large and in my opinion outside of normal control, where the fisheries department is unable to develop this sort of contact where you have a limited fishery, it's a tremendous problem to develop rapport with the fisherman and get voluntary compliance. I would much prefer voluntary compliance, there is no question in my mind at all about that. But if you can't do it, what will we do? Will we just wait? How long will we wait? Will we wait until resources are so diminished that there is nothing left to save? I know that Dr. Silas from the Cochin Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, years ago, in 1983, proposed adopting TEDs at least in Orissa. Dr. Silas is, he is no longer Director of the Institute, but he is a very dynamic person with tremendous vision. Other fisheries officers, other people concerned with conservation of marine resources followed this up with other suggestions. It's not easy, I know this, but nothing has happened so far. How long can we wait? How much destruction of these resources on which many coastal peoples depend, can we tolerate? Something has to be done to tell these trawlers "you cannot continue like this, you have got to be more selective, you've got to take care of these resources, they are not your resources." These resources, if we are talking about the trawling, are national resources, they do not belong to the trawling community. They belong to the nation and I am deeply concerned - this is why I have gone into great detail with the social aspects - that other people who have a right to these resources have also access. In South East Asia there are large communities of people who for generations used types of fishing which are selective. They have done this for God knows how long, and now those people have been marginalised by a technology ... [end of tape] ... which is very, very destructive. I believe trawling in this way is socially unjust and I am very concerned about it. I would say there is great reason to make trawling as selective as possible, as fast as possible. I would prefer that it be voluntary and if we can't do that then, something has to be done, such as in Thailand where it was legislated and quickly done in a matter of months.

Chairman

147. Thank you very much, Dr. Frazier. Dr. Guinea?

Mr. Guinea

148. Thank you Mr. Chairman. In reply to the questions posed by Malaysia, those questions which were directed to Dr. Eckert have been adequately explained by him or answered by him. I do not wish to comment on the first four questions. The questions directed to all the experts, "in your expert opinion, would trade prohibition on the import of shrimp to the US by itself save sea turtles from shrimp trawlers and extinction?" [question 1 by Malaysia] I have addressed this before in my opening remarks and also in my written submission. As I was going through the submissions by the various parties I was looking for some index or some measure of reduction of fishing effort resulting from the embargo. Some of the documents are still fairly recent but the figures indicated that the exports from the affected countries to the USA decreased. This simply meant that the product going into America was reduced. I was looking for some measure to say that the product that was not allowed into America, was being dumped or was the trawl fishery suffering; were there boats remaining in port because they could not comply with the US embargo? Nowhere in the document was there any evidence to suggest that the fishing fleet had been reduced, that there were hardships being accounted on the trawl fisheries and in discussions at other meetings it was indicated that the product was making its way to other markets. This was expressed as a concern in my submission by some of the fishery officers in Australia. So if there is no reduction in fishing effort, then the same number of vessels are going to sea for the same number of days, towing the same number of nets and, should they be encountering turtles, they will be encountering the same number of turtles and regardless of where the product is going. In this regard I see the US are saying "we do not want to eat a product that has not been caught in a particular way". Now that does not affect the number of turtles that are surviving, it is a preference for a market or for a way a product is being prepared. So if you are looking for some measure of the success of an embargo, you will be looking for a thing such as positive outcome in terms of the numbers of sea turtles that are surviving on the trawling grounds. I have yet to see numbers to demonstrate that after some years of TEDs being used in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean sea fisheries, that the turtle numbers have actually increased on those fields. We have figures relating to a decrease in the number of turtles washing ashore, that is referred to as a "stranding", that you would be looking for some positive measure to say "yes, if 5,000 turtles were not killed this year then the population of that trawl field should have increased by at least 5,000". If the TEDs have been installed for 5 years then it is 5 times 5 and we are looking at 25,000 turtles increasing in a population. That sort of data just has not been presented - that is a concern.

149. Also looking at the embargo, there is no indication of milestones or checkpoints as to how the success of the embargo was likely to be planned. There seems to be an adoption that once a TED is installed then the turtles will be saved from extinction. I think that if you are going to put some form of an embargo in place you will be keeping regular checks of what is happening not only with your own population on the feeding grounds but also what is happening on the population of sea turtles in the affected countries. That does not seem to be happening either. There may be a need to develop surrogate measures of sea turtle survivorship or sea turtle mortality. This may be best directed towards some sort of measure of fishing effort presented in a standard format in either head rope lengths, number of boats or something in that nature, and there seems to be a mixture of measures by which effort is mentioned. In some countries we simply have a measure of the number of vessels that are involved with a fishery - whether that is 2,000 vessels or 3,000 vessels - but that still does not give an indication of how long each tow is, how many days they are at sea and what is their likely capture of sea turtles. There is a general lack of information provided in the submissions in this regard. The other point that I was looking for was did shrimp prices increase in the USA as a result of the embargo? What incentives are there for the affected countries to coerce their fleets to bring about the implementation of TEDs - indicating that "yes, you can get more money for your product if you are using a TED". In fact, the information provided with the submissions indicated that the costs of shrimps actually decreased after the implementation of the embargo. In fact, it decreased by about 9 dollars to 8 dollars or something in that order per kilo. So those figures indicate that the market was not maintained; it was not a profitable market awaiting countries that are implementing the use of TEDs. There are also other questions. I have addressed the fact that other markets were found for the shrimp products. It has also been suggested, and the US has challenged this, that some shrimp or shrimp products could be transshipped through third party countries. Now, whether this does or does not occur, it could surely be a valid case for environmentally labelling products as to the country of origin and method of capture, etc. I shall just state the point again that TEDs or turtle-excluded devices are just one of the options that should be or could be imposed in the responsible management of a fishery. I think that might suffice for question 5 [by Malaysia].

150. "What is the acceptable recognized method of determining the population size of breeding units of sea turtles especially in the assessment of population trends?" [question 2 by Malaysia] From the literature there appears to be no case of a sea turtle nesting in one country and then nesting in another country. We talk about migrating to a nesting beach and that nesting beach has a geographic location and then that geographic location becomes the centre of the breeding unit. That may in fact be one beach, it may be a number of islands, it may be a geographic location covering several hundred square kilometres. This is actually fundamental to all the other aspects of sea turtle biology. We talk about using mitochondrial DNA to look at philopatry - or the return of individuals to their nesting beaches. If a turtle is nesting in one country and then moves to another country and then moves to another country to nest, if those countries are at a distance, then all the mitochondrial DNA work should be thrown out the window. The basis of the mitochondrial DNA is that there is only migration between breeding units at a rate of less than two females per generation and that means that in the lifespan of a sea turtle, which may be some decades, no more than two females will move from one breeding unit to another breeding unit. That is fundamental. So the breeding units become the focus of your conservation measures. If one breeding unit is wiped out, through any number of reasons, it will not be replenished by neighbouring breeding units because the sea turtles exhibit a strong returning to a geographic locality for breeding. Therefore by assessing the number of females on a breeding ground you can assess the status of your breeding population. All of the life tablework that has been produced, the growth models are in fact based on female sea turtles. So when we talk the magic number of 584, we are talking about 584 females. We do not talk about the number of males. Therefore we use a philopatrical breeding area as the unit for assessing sea turtle populations - either the relevant numbers, the relative importance, the changes from year to year and also seasonal declines over time or in fact increase over time.

151. Question 7 [by Malaysia], I have also raised this point of stocks and breeding units. I prefer not to talk about stocks, I prefer to talk about breeding units. Stocks tend to be a very value-loaded concept where historically in fisheries they tend to be able to determine all the parameters of the stock. With a breeding unit, the concept, on the other hand looks at the means of assessing the numbers of nesting females. And you can actually live with the situation of not knowing where all the individuals are at any one time of that breeding unit, as long as there is an assessable number that is returning annually or over a period of time to the breeding area. With the concept of stocks regularly on a feeding ground, it is likely that you will have more than one breeding unit of sea turtles present and it is important to address the composition of the feeding ground as regards to the breeding unit composition. As an example, if there are two breeding units on a feeding ground, at the rookery, one of those breeding units might be suffering very heavy egg harvesting, natural mortality or commercial harvesting of their products. The other breeding unit may not suffer those consequences on the nesting beaches. In order to prioritize your conservation activities, if you can identify that, not only is a population being negatively impacted on a feeding ground but is also suffering heavy mortality on the rookery, then that breeding unit can be ranked as being more worthy of conservation effort than a breeding unit that may be suffering some mortality on the feeding ground, but the rookeries and nesting areas are still intact. In terms of being able to prioritize your research activities, your conservation activities, you can then nominate very clearly that you are going to address a particular aspect of one breeding unit of sea turtle and you are going to address particular points regarding its life cycle and its conservation. This also brings about the fact that, as far as funding organizations can go and also managers and funding agencies, you can produce stronger and more focused arguments to protect, as a matter of priority, selective breeding units. This could be a case for funding organizations to identify projects, give them a better chance of success and also it would bring the researchers into more accountability for actually producing what they set out to do. I think this business of accountability, of research funds and the conservation dollar is very important. I think I shall leave question 7 at that, thank you.

152. Now in question 8 [by Malaysia], "when studies on any particular sea turtle population are made, would the results apply to the population being studied or would you generalize the data for all sea turtles irrespective of the species or where they occur?" There are fundamental dangers in generalizing. There are fundamental dangers just as there are in generalizing about countries. There is fundamental dangers in generalizing not only about what a species does, not only about its growth rate, not only about where it lives, but not only where it occurs on the feeding grounds. There is also dangers in generalizing about fisheries because a generalization can lead people to think a fishery the world over is the same. Therefore the way a net is operated in Australia is similar to the way a net is operated in the USA or regions where nets are operated. So there is a danger and I find this in the report saying "shrimp trawling in the USA versus shrimp trawling in Malaysia". I am not aware in either country whether the shrimp trawling is exclusive of sea grass beds or whether shrimp trawling is conducted up to the shoreline, or whether shrimp trawling is conducted at night or whether shrimp trawling is conducted in all seasons of the year. We have this generalization that shrimp trawling per se, regardless of any other management implication or procedure used by the fishers themselves, is then transferred immediately to another country. I think this is a danger in itself of generalizing in trawl fisheries. Because sea turtles and trawls are the focus of this talk, I think that it is a justification for my wandering into a fisheries area. So just to reiterate, it is very important to exercise caution in interpretation of sea turtle data and also fisheries data.

153. Question 9 [by Malaysia], "notwithstanding the status listed of sea turtles provided in the IUCN etc. would you not say there are sea turtle populations in the world which are quite healthy and which benefit from long-term conservation programmes that started some 30 years ago?" I think all sea turtles benefit from conservation programmes which started 30 years ago. There is a few milestones in these conservation programmes where fundamental research, such as the longevity of different tags that have been applied to sea turtles, the effectiveness of different tags. It was only a few decades ago where we were talking about particular species of sea turtles nesting only once in their life. The reason for those misconceptions was the fact the tags which were applied to those turtles fell off in about 10 years and so therefore we had so few tag recoveries, we were led to the idea that they nest during only one season and there were many options built on those assumptions. Now over the last 20 years, having changed from Monel metal to Inconel to Titanium we realize now that the turtle tags can remain far longer, possibly as long as the turtle. So now the whole focus of these early management options have been changed. That brings about an increase in benefit to all sea turtles - not just those turtles that were tagged on the Great Barrier Reef or not just those turtles that were tagged in Southern USA. Sea turtle researchers in other countries do not have to follow the same path; they do not have to make the same mistakes over and over again in doing the fundamental research. If you are looking for areas that were quite healthy, there is good documentation from South Africa where species numbers have increased. I should also point out that in a number of countries, Australia included, sea turtles were not actually protected until about the 1960s and prior to that there were active turtle soup factories. Turtles were harvested and turned into soup and exported to whoever wanted to eat turtle soup. It was only in the 1960s that conservation efforts came in. So that is still less than one generation time for a green turtle which was the target of the turtle soup factories. In that regard, having removed the commercialization from sea turtles of Australia and remove the cash value of the turtle, those turtles have enjoyed a degree of protection for the last 30 years. There has been a move for cash value of sea turtles in neighbouring countries, from where the Australian breeding units move, and this is a cause of concern. There has been a general realization that in some areas sea turtles are negatively impacted by prawn trawlers or shrimp trawlers. The overall conservation measures provided in Australia are trying to build a secure foundation for sea turtle biology - for sea turtle conservation. Realizing the time frame, then we are hopeful that in years to come we have good news of sea turtle numbers in scientific literature rather than bad news of decreasing numbers and the like.

154. Question 10 [by Malaysia] talks about loggerheads being the most dominant species followed by Kemp's ridleys. In response to that question I would like to know whether the composition of the catch in shrimp trawls in the USA is a true reflection of the distribution and abundance of sea turtles on the feeding grounds in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea. It would appear from the Australian studies that not all sea turtles are impacted to the same extent. Not all sea turtles suffer the same mortality. Some species seem to be more resilient to being dragged in a prawn trawler. Others, by their particular behaviours, may be more susceptible to capture. It has been suggested in some of the literature that green turtles, being quicker, can outswim the approaching trawler net. Loggerhead sea turtles, being less agile, less inclined to swim, are more prone to being captured in trawl nets. So there are a few questions that have to be sorted out. One is whether you have a true sample of your feeding population being presented in the shrimp trawl bycatch or whether you have particular species which through the course of their nature or energetics or may be even feeding biology are more prone to being caught in a shrimp trawl. In that regard you may find that loggerhead sea turtles may be far more prone to capture because they are more reluctant to swim out of the way of trawlers. That is a supposition and you have to do a lot of work with trawl and experiment with loggerheads in a trawl net environment. However, there has been some suggestion that this is in fact the case.

155. If I could just turn to the questions posed by the United States - the first question refers to the status in the complainant's country, in the complainant's waters. There are members of populations which are not yet showing signs of recovery. "If such sea turtles suffer incidental mortality in shrimp trawl nets would this not contribute to the endangerment of sea turtles?" [Question 1 by the United States] As I just mentioned in my last response, some of the sea turtles are more prone to being caught in shrimp trawls and other sea turtles seem to be less prone to capture in shrimp trawls. Seeing that on the Panel of Experts we have Mr. Liew,who is far more familiar with Malaysia than I am, I would like to leave some of the aspects of this answer to Mr. Liew. I would also mention that some of the population in Malaysia, possibly the leatherbacks in Terengganu, may still not be recovering; but then, they may not be affected by shrimp trawling either. So again, I reiterate the problem of generalizations.

156. In Question 2 [by the United States], which was directed to me, I produced in my response a calculation, to which I would like to thank the United States for allowing me to expand on this aspect of my submission. The reproductive value figures that I mentioned yesterday are a mathematical abstraction, and are in fact modelling which have been used to indicate the relative worth of an adult female loggerhead in the south east United States of America. This figure has a great deal of plasticity, as indicated by the much lower values of between 200 and 400 in Australian populations of the same species. This value of 584 is the most widely quoted value in submissions and also in the masterly works provided by the National Academy of Sciences in the Decline of Sea Turtles. Due to the lack of reproductive values for other species, the figure of 584 has been used as an implement to argue the worth of adult sea turtles in other species. However, as an instrument, it is like a two-edge sword that can be used to predict the survivorship of eggs to adults and the subsequent recruitment. It is in this context that I have used it to illustrate the possible recruitment to the Gahirmatha olive ridley population. A nesting population estimated to be 500,000 females would produce approximately 50 million eggs and this figure comes actually from the submissions. In a season, using Crouse's figures for loggerheads, the recruitment would be possibly 85,000 female adults. A mortality of 5,000 female adults represents less than 1 per cent of the estimated nesting population and should those 5,000 die before reproducing, it would be less than 6 per cent of the year's new recruits. Should the reproductive value of Gahirmatha olive ridleys be 200, as it is for some of the breeding units of the Australian loggerheads, then the recruitment would be in the order of 250,000 individuals in one generation's time. So sea turtle reproductive strategies are an exercise in numbers. To the casual observer the loss of 5,000 individuals would be a reason for concern but when the nesting population is estimated to be in the order of 600,000 animals, then this loss is relatively minor. The concern should be not for the absolute number, but rather the proportion of a breeding unit that is adversely affected. Within the various submissions I found figures of one million turtle eggs being taken to market or 400,000 eggs lost to natural causes. This should be viewed in relation to the total number of eggs deposited by the breeding unit in one generation, which may be for them some decades. Although these numbers are large, sea turtle biology is all about a numbers game. You have to look at the egg production in a generation by a breeding unit to ascertain whether that is an effective or substantial number or whether that is relatively minor.

157. Question 3 [by the United States]: "all the experts have noticed various causes of sea turtle mortality including mortality on the beaches and due to incidental mortality in shrimping and fishing operations. Does the existence of all these threats to sea turtles make it more important or less important to prevent sea turtle mortality in shrimp trawlers?" If you use the paradigm of a breeding unit then you have to address this on a case-by-case basis rather than a gross generalization. It is the case-by-case basis that is important. Only on this case-by-case basis can you actually achieve something. If you take on conservation of sea turtles of the world as your prime objective, then you are unlikely to succeed. However, if everybody is working on a case-by-case basis, the total of the conservation effort may well in fact result in the conservation of the sea turtles of the world. So, in answer to question 3, you have to look at this on a case-by-case basis.

158. In question 4 [by the United States]: "do the experts agree that TEDs when probably installed and used reduce mortality of sea turtles in shrimp trawl nets?" I would think that there needs to be more information provided with this question. We are talking about TEDs properly installed. I would go further to say, if the TED is properly designed for that fishery and if the TED is properly installed and properly used, then it will reduce the mortality of a trawl fishery. To explain this: if a country or a fleet bought a TED off the shelf from a producer and used that TED blindly, thinking that "yes, this will be the answer to all their problems", then they are unlikely to be successful. If they are going to look at the use of a TED, the TED should be designed for those fishing areas and this may in fact involve several designs operating within a country. Selected areas may be looking at a TED specifically designed for the sea turtle population that is likely to be encountered in that trawl field. This may involve narrow-grated TEDs. It may involve larger TEDs. It would depend on the sea turtles that are present on that feeding ground and the level of trawl activity. Again, the size of the sea turtles is also important. Also the species of sea turtles. In fact some work has gone into the AusTED, in recognition of the fact that the flatback sea turtles are one of the most commonly caught sea turtles in the Australian trawl fishery. There are in fact no data available for how flatback sea turtles behave in trawl nets or how they respond to TEDs. Therefore, there is an argument for countries to develop a TED for their trawl fishery based on the species of sea turtles that are present.

159. There appears to be no data available for olive ridley sea turtles in TEDs from the USA. Olive ridley sea turtles are a component of the feeding grounds in the countries concerned. So I shall go further to say that a TED, if it was properly designed and installed and used in a proper manner then it will go some way to reducing sea turtle mortality. If the United States figures are still a decrease of 40 per cent in strandings by the use of their TEDs which were properly used, properly designed and in their fishery, you could not say that they were going to have a complete reduction of sea turtle mortality. It will go some way to reducing the sea turtle mortality in the trawl fishery or the shrimp trawl fishery.

160. Question 5 [by the United States]: "if all the world's shrimp trawling fleets used TEDs would this contribute to the reduction to the threat of sea turtles?" The answer to that, we need to look at what is meant by the world's shrimp trawling fleets. Is it the desire for the United States to comment on the temperate water shrimp trawler fleets or should we restrict their answers to the tropical water shrimp trawl fleets? Of course, by exclusion the temperate water shrimp trawl fleet tend to have little or no impact or implied impact with sea turtles. So the question should be whether the use of TEDs would contribute to sea turtle conservation and I think my last answer would indicate that properly designed TEDs, properly installed TEDs would go some way to reducing sea turtle mortality. Until we get better data from the United States as to the effectiveness of their TEDs, I would be hesitant to say that they will go all the way to achieving their 97 per cent reduction in sea turtle strandings.

161. Question 6 [by the United States]: I shall leave the full discourse of time and area closures to Dr. Poiner, if I may. But I will make some comments. "Could the experts comment on this and in particular address whether sea turtle mortality could also occur in areas during times where shrimp trawling is not banned?" Now I have some confusion over this. Sea turtle mortality occurs throughout the sea turtles' life; whether trawls are present or not. It is my experience dealing with stranded sea turtles that when we encounter a dead turtle we tend to look for someone to blame, rather than for something to blame. I have encountered this in parts of Timor Sea where, during particular spring tides, sea turtles that are slow at moving off the beaches are caught on the reef flat and succumb to the heat during the day. Those turtles may then wash up on beaches in the area. Part of my work then is trying to assess whether this sea turtle died of natural causes, whether it be through a misadventure of tardy nest preparation and being caught by the heat of the day - succumbed to the heat during the low tide. So we have developed a stranding or a means of assessing strandings as to whether this a likely impact of a natural cause or whether this has been an impact of subsistence fishermen in the area who have moved in and taken a turtle or has it succumbed to fishing operations in the area. So I think when we are looking at sea turtle mortality we have to improve our intelligence as to what was the nature of the mortality. There are a few things that can be used to ascertain whether this animal drowned, was dropped onto a sorting deck, caught in a gill net, has been through a drum winch, been adversely affected by humans removing flesh or eggs or whatever. So the intelligence associated with assessing the mortality is very important. So saying, "we looked at a number of turtles and it would appear they were carrying eggs, they were unsuccessful nesters and were caught by the tide, they succumbed to the heat during the day," rather than saying "we saw 30 dead turtles and therefore there must be a subsistence fishing fleet in the area who have been killing turtles." I think this is very important to ascertain the cause of the mortality rather than just saying "yes, there is a mortality". I was looking for something like that in the report that there was 5,000 turtles washing ashore in Gahirmatha. Where was the intelligence of this? It is very easy to point at a vessel offshore and say, yes, it has come from that vessel. But when you are dealing with 600,000 animals trying to nest in one year you are likely to have a very high mortality from natural causes - just sheer natural causes. Even on islands like Raine Island where in excess of 10,000 turtles may nest a night, over the course of the nesting season there will be hundreds of dead turtles on the beach. There will be turtles that are caught by the tide, turtles who have just come to the end of their life and turtles that have expired while nesting. Where you have large numbers of turtles, you have large natural mortalities. This is something that should be looked at when we are talking about "does mortality occur in the absence of shrimp trawling?" Mortality occurs throughout the turtles life and it may be excessive on some of the nesting beaches or larger in non-nesting turtles and may be females are more prone to this sort of mortality than are males.

162. "Do we have enough knowledge to identify all potential hot spots where sea turtles and shrimps interact?" [question 6 by the United States] I think the idea of looking at the concept of hot spots, these areas where sea turtles will be feeding and by closures of areas likely to encounter sea turtles, you have gone a long way to excluding sea turtles from the trawl fishery. In some of the areas in Northern Australia olive ridley sea turtles feed in very shallow water, feeding on mollusc. They are not actually feeding on the shrimp. They just happen to be in the same area as the shrimp and they feed on shellfish and the like. By having closures in those areas, those turtles would be protected from shrimp trawlers. I think I shall leave Dr. Pointer to say more about that. Question 7 [by the United States], seeing it is directed to Dr. Eckert, I shall leave that question. In question 8 [by the United States], I would like to indicate that it was Dr. Pointer that noted that the adoption of TEDs by a shrimp trawl fleet would take 6 to 8 years. However, I am happy to comment as best I can as to the implementation of TEDs and I welcome Dr. Pointer's opinion as well. I cannot speak for Thailand as to how it produced such an elegant and effective TED within a matter of months. I congratulate Thailand for doing so, but the means by which they did it are best known to Thailand and I would encourage Thailand, to produce some of their documents on the means of developing turtle free TEDs.

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