operations from the region in 1995. The amount of tuna is thought to depend on conditions on the seamount, and on the current process range of the tuna schools. Concerns and studies Reviews of the local catches have seemed to show no impact of the fishing operation on nearby tuna fishing. However, this is not very surprising, as fishery operations exist nearby with as much as 1000 times the activity. Nevertheless, as tuna spawn locally, there are concerns that the fishing eats away at the juvenile tuna population, which has the potential to seriously hurt fish numbers. 1995 tagging project In 1995, a project to tag the local fish, to analyze the population, was implemented by the NOAA, based on a plan proposed by fishermen in 1992. The first fish were tagged and released in August 1995. The objectives of the project was to investigate the retention rates of tuna on the Cross Seamount, movement patterns of tuna in relation to the fishery patterns, and the interaction between surface and longline fishing. The recovery rate was found to be 5.2% for Yellowfins, and 8.1% for Bigeyes. The longest-distance recapture was a yellowfin tuna tagged on the Cross Seamount in November 1996 and recaptured off the coast of the Baja California peninsula in July 1997. Overfishing (as in the rate of depletion) at the Cross seamount appeared to be quite high, causing concerns. However, as much of the population seems to originate elsewhere, this loss is most likely accounted for. Problems with fishery interaction were eliminated, as 90% of the recaptures were in the local area. However, it was not possible to create a model on the overfishing of juveniles, as there was insufficient data to predict this accurately. HARP Cross seamount hosts a High-frequency Autonomous Acoustic Recording Package (HARP), installed on its summit by the NOAA in April 2005. The purpose of the HARP is to monitor cetaceans that near the seamount, and ultimately to develop ways to work with the marine mammal population using acoustic data. The unit undergoes routine maintenance, and its data is retrieved and analyzed every so often by an NOAA ship. NOAA cruises Cross Seamount was cruised by the NOAA in 2006, 2007, and 2008. On November 2, 2006, scientists on the NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette, led by chief scientist Michael Musyl, conducted an array of biological experiments off of Kona coast and Cross