March 17, 2014 — Two groups representing North Carolina commercial fishermen have fired a shot across the bow of state and federal agencies, sending a notice of intent to sue federal and state fisheries managers over protection of sea turtles under the Endangered Species Act.
The North Carolina Fisheries Association and Carteret County Fisherman’s Association, represented by attorney Stevenson Weeks, filed notice to sue on March 5. They cite ESA violations on the part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servies and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the N.C. Department of, Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR), N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
The group’s letter charges that the state and federal agencies had knowledge of significant turtle takes in the recreational hook-and-line fishery and other resource users, yet focused their conservation and regulation measures almost solely on commercial fisheries, arbitrarily and capriciously assigning the full burden of the species recovery to commercial fishermen. The letter said commercial fishermen are highly regulated, while recreational hook-and-line fisheries and recreational boaters are involved in interactions with sea turtles, yet they remain unregulated – a violation of the ESA.
While the letter said the commercial fishing groups are simply seeking an assessment of sea turtle populations and a level at which they could be considered as “recovered” – plus equal sharing of responsibility for the recovery – they seek to hold recreational fishermen and boaters hostage to force federal and state agencies to comply.
Jerry Schell, acting executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, wrote in his March 8 NCFA weekly update, “I suffer from a long memory when it comes to the Endangered Species Act and the protection of sea turtles. It began with (turtle extruder devices). Shrimpers were asked to come up with a solution to protect sea turtles. And they did. It wasn’t an easy process, and it wasn’t cheap, but they did. The same is true for the pelagic long-line fishery. They came up with circle hooks after a lot of work, and that resulted in losing 25-percent of their swordfish catch. And now we add the estuarine gill-net fishery with observers, closed areas and other restrictions. During all of this, the fishermen see lots and lots of turtles in increasing numbers. On one hand that’s a good thing. But with more turtles, guess what? There’s the possibility of more interaction.
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