Tuna/Porpoise Observer Program

More Needs to Be Done to Identify and Report Harassment of Observers Gao ID: RCED-91-38 November 2, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) management and operation of its tuna and porpoise observer program, intended to monitor U.S. tuna fishing operations' compliance with regulations protecting porpoises.

GAO found that: (1) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) observers experienced one or more types of harassment on about 18 percent of the 191 cruises listed in its database between 1985 and June 1989; (2) no evidence showed that harassed observers were influenced to underreport the number of porpoises killed; (3) training and procedural problems in the tuna and porpoise observer program adversely affected the identification, documentation, and reporting of harassment; (4) observers had no means to confidentially report harassment; and (5) NMFS controls over the data collection and reporting did not adequately ensure that observers correctly counted kills.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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