SACRAMENTO, Calif., — July 30, 2013 — The following was released by Pacific Legal Foundation:
Federal bureaucrats have illegally abandoned their statutory duty to protect abalone and other shellfish resources — and the industries dependent on them — from being ravaged by sea otters in the waters off the Southern California coast.
So argues a federal lawsuit filed today by attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of a California state commission and several non-profit organizations that have a direct interest in maintaining healthy populations of shellfish in what is known as the Southern California Bight (i.e., the waters off the California Coast from Point Conception to the Mexican Border).
PLF’s lawsuit targets the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for eliminating the “sea otter management zone” in the Southern California Bight that Congress required in a 1986 statute.
The statute (Public Law 99-625) authorized the Service to set up an experimental population of the California sea otter. The Service exercised that power by creating an experimental population at San Nicolas Island, one of the Channel Islands, off of the Ventura County coast. The law also directed that, should the Service choose to establish an experimental population, it should also establish a “no otter” management zone, to ensure that the introduced otters would not ravage shellfish and other fishery resources. Further, the law directed that otherwise lawful activity (such as commercial fishing) be allowed to proceed within the management zone, even if this activity accidentally harmed otters. The Service exercised this authority by designating all of the Southern California Bight (except for San Nicolas Island) as the management zone.
The 1986 statute remains in effect, but FWS has unilaterally — without congressional approval or authorization — stopped obeying and implementing it. Under a rule that the agency issued on its own in December, 2012, FWS excused itself from removing sea otters from the management zone and cancelled the exemption from liability when sea otters in the zone are unintentionally harmed.