Neil Abercrombie: “I want to emphasize in the time given to me, this cannot be done without the Federal Government. This is not the…”

“I want to emphasize in the time given to me, this cannot be done without the Federal Government. This is not the responsibility of a State. The monk seal is the only species of its kind in U.S. waters, and it is up to us as stewards in this environment, in this ocean environment to take up this cause. So it is very, very important. The same with the green sea turtle. This also affects not only Hawaii, but areas around Florida as well as other sites throughout the world. My principal emphasis here is that this extinction is a very real possibility, and yet the National Marine Fisheries Service has done extraordinarily great service for this Nation in terms of the stewardship to which I referred. It is bringing back the species. It is now into the thousands, coming back up as far as the monk seal is concerned. With the investigations of biology, ecology, and life history of these species being examined by the National Marine Fisheries, with the chairman's good efforts on our behalf, I think that we will find that the whole Nation will be the beneficiary and we will have done by these species what is required of us as a human species looking out in our capacity and responsibility for species throughout the world.”