Brian Gorman Quotations

There is no question that it is a distinct population.

It is a very slow and laborious process. It's not a practical way to deal with nuisance animals, especially on a large scale.

The actual hunt is a long way off. This is not a rubber-stamp process.

This would be unprecedented and, needless to say, would have tremendous effects on fishermen. But we don't see around this, is what we're saying. No flexibility.

We wouldn't be proposing to list these guys if their situation wasn't perilous.

Within three or four weeks they were back.

We feel like there's a bit of a glass ceiling in San Francisco. We're full out -- we're so ... driven but, and I may be wrong, it seems like there's very little industry here.

We did an independent analysis of Oregon's numbers, and we came to the conclusion that their science was pretty tight, and accurate. Our own biological assessment says these fish have a lot of pluck. They're very resilient. They're subject to considerable fluctuations, depending on ocean conditions, but they seem to bounce back if they're given the opportunity.

Between the time we proposed to list these animals as threatened and now, we've discovered the population is in a more delicate situation than we had assumed.

Any natural or man-made disaster ... could really wipe out many of these animals.

This is not the sort of thing that you crank out in a weekend,

This doesn't meet the standard that says in the foreseeable future these fish will become endangered. We proposed a year and a half ago to list them as threatened. But we have been convinced, in large part because of the hatchery and harvest reforms that were undertaken very aggressively, that a listing is not warranted.

It's a done deal. It will affect ocean fisheries up and down the coast.

Taking five whales a year would not have any biological impact on the population.

Clearly, if we don't do anything, I think it's accurate to say a number of populations of salmon will be extinct or close to extinct in 100 years,

Because the population has such a small number of sexually active males in it, a catastrophic event -- an oil spill, a chemical spill -- could really make a huge difference in the population.

The Makahs are hardly responsible for what somebody else does. The Makah have a clear right (under an 1855 treaty) to hunt gray whales.