Saving Seafood

Environmental Group Sues Over Ice Seal Habitat Decision

June 17, 2019 — An environmental group sued the Trump administration Thursday for failing to designate critical habitat for two species of seals that rely on sea ice off Alaska’s northwest coast.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service for not designating critical habitat for threatened ringed and bearded seals. Agency spokeswoman Julie Speegle said by email the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Designation of critical habitat for a threatened species is required by the Endangered Species Act a year after a listing. Federal agencies that authorize activities such as oil drilling within critical habitat must consult with wildlife managers to determine if threatened species will be affected.

Center for Biological Diversity attorney Emily Jeffers, who drafted the lawsuit, said by phone from Oakland, California, that additional protections are needed for ringed and bearded seals, which already are losing habitat because of climate warming.

“It’s where the rubber hits the roads in terms of actual protections,” she said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Courthouse News Service

Lawsuit Challenges NMFS Exempted Fishing Permits for Two Pelagic Longline Vessels Off California

June 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network sued the Trump administration this week for permitting a new longline fishery — two vessels –in the Pacific Ocean.

The fishery, authorized in May by the National Marine Fisheries Service, would operate off California despite a federal ban on longline gear created in 2004 to protect sea turtles. This fishing will threaten endangered leatherback sea turtles, as well as olive ridley and loggerhead sea turtles and Guadalupe fur seals, the Center said in a press release.

“Leatherback sea turtles need to catch a break, not a longline hook,” Catherine Kilduff, a Center senior attorney, said in the release. “Californians demand more selective and sustainable fishing for swordfish. But the indiscriminate longlines authorized by the Trump administration will hook, injure and drown endangered species off our coast.”

“This is basically the same fishery the agency outlawed fifteen years ago, and the same agency is using a backdoor maneuver to get the fishery reopened,” Todd Steiner, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network stated. “Sea turtles could go extinct if deadly longline fisheries are expanded. And it’s not just in California— the Hawaii longline fleet has been forced to close early two years in a row because they have exceeded their legal turtle take. It makes no sense to re-authorize this wasteful fishery off of California.”

The exempted fishing permit has been years in the making and was approved unanimously by the Pacific Fishery Management Council after being fully vetted by the Council, its advisory bodies and the public. NMFS then issued the permit that allows for only two fishermen on two vessels to target highly migratory tuna and swordfish.

The EFP requires 100% monitoring by observers and establishes hard caps on ESA-listed species. That is, fishing must stop if the number of incidental interactions with animals exceed certain parameters. It also excludes any fishing within 50 miles of the coast or offshore islands and requires a full suite of verified mitigation techniques be used during all test fishing. These techniques are known to reduce or eliminate interactions with sea birds, sea turtles and marine mammals.

In fact, NMFS issued terms and conditions for the EFP that are more restrictive than those listed in the original application.

“NOAA’s decision is a huge win for American fisheries, fishermen and ultimately, the environment,” Dave Rudie, owner of Catalina Offshore Products and President of the California Pelagic Fisheries Association, said in a statement. “It will greatly benefit San Diego and southern California and our consumers as well.”

The new permits could increase reliance on local seafood, particularly where swordfish and tuna are concerned. The North Pacific swordfish population is very healthy and would support a substantial additional harvest according to all international fisheries experts and published reports. Any increase in U.S. fisheries production improves America’s seafood security as well as provides for a sustainable ecosystem footprint often lacking in the weak environmental oversight of foreign fisheries, the association noted in a press release.

The Center said Pacific leatherback sea turtles are highly endangered, with scientists predicting their extinction in 20 years. Yet the exempted fishery will occur in an area that includes the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, which prohibits swordfish fishing using drift gillnets to protect leatherback sea turtles.

However, the increased mitigation requirements mandated by NMFS specify no-fishing areas such as the Southern California Bight and within leatherback critical habitat or 50 nautical miles from the coast, whichever is greater.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, states NMFS’ issuance of the permit violated several environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The suit seeks to invalidate the permit, protecting the turtles and seals from longlines.

NMFS issued the permit May 8.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Environmental groups file federal suit to stop California longline fishery

June 6, 2019 — Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, 6 June, claiming it used a “backdoor maneuver” to permit a new longline fishery off the California coast.

In a statement, the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network said NOAA Fisheries did not comply with the Endangered Species Act when it approved the longline fishery last month. The fishery will consist of two fishing vessels utilizing lines with numerous hooks that stretch for miles to catch tuna and swordfish.

The groups fear endangered species such as Pacific leatherback turtles will end up caught in some of the hooks and potentially die from the interaction. Scientists believe those leatherbacks could become extinct within two decades.

“The failure of the Fisheries Service to comply with environmental laws in issuing the Permit diminishes leatherback sea turtles’ slim chance to defy predictions of extinction,” the complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, states.

Officials issued the permit even though NOAA Fisheries banned longlines 15 years ago.

“This is basically the same fishery the agency outlawed 15 years ago, and the same agency is using a backdoor maneuver to get the fishery reopened,” Turtle Island Restoration Network Executive Director Todd Steiner said in a statement.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Killers and kings: West Coast group intervenes in orca lawsuit

May 31, 2019 — On Wednesday, May 29, the federation, the West Coast’s largest trade organization of small-scale commercial fishermen, filed its opposition to the lawsuit filed in a Seattle federal court lawsuit on April 3, by the Wild Fish Conservancy and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The suit was reportedly filed to protect endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales which eat primarily king salmon, by arguing that their food supply is not well managed. This orca subgroup migrates from California’s coastal waters to Washington’s Puget Sound and into British Columbia. West Coast salmon fisheries outside of state waters are managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which prioritizes sustainability and replenishment.

The suit claims that federally managed ocean salmon fisheries are allowing commercial harvest of the orcas’ food supply, which is contrary to NMFS data and management standards that commercial salmon fisheries have little or no impact on the whales. For many years the council has managed West Coast salmon fisheries to minimize any potential competition between orcas and fishermen, including through a NMFS-approved 2009 biological opinion, which contains various required mitigation measures that further minimize and mitigate impacts to the endangered whales.

“Seafood lovers on the West Coast should be proud of their fisheries management system, which is among the best in the world,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “The Center for Biological Diversity and Wild Fish Conservancy lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service is naïve, counterproductive, and unnecessary. By suing, these two groups instead undermine the extraordinary coalition of scientists, managers, commercial fishermen, and conservationists that has come together to identify the strategies that will be used to recover the Southern Resident Killer Whale population.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

California Considers Sport Crab Fishery for Action Relating to Whale Entanglement

April 19, 2019 — The California Fish and Game Commission is proactively working to avoid further whale entanglements — and further lawsuits.

On Wednesday the Commission approved the Marine Resources Committee to take up the issue of recreational crab fishing, and possibly other fixed gear fisheries, and its potential to entangle whales. The commercial fleet early on questioned why other fisheries, particularly sport fisheries, were not subject to the same scrutiny as the commercial sector.

The commercial season closed earlier this week, on April 15, as part of a settlement agreement between the Center for Biological Diversity, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which intervened on the case.

CDFW Director Charlton “Chuck” Bonham said during the introduction that, despite a lot of the rhetoric, the increase in whale entanglements in 2015 and 2016 were examples of the real-life impacts of climate change. While the commercial crab season was delayed for months due to elevated levels of domoic acid, whales also ventured closer to shore in search of prey species. Both of those events were linked to warmer ocean waters.

Bonham said during the progression of the lawsuit, the department concluded the judge was likely to rule against the state. Had that happened, the court could have become a “special master” of the crab fishery, he said, and that inserting a federal judge in the management of the fishery wouldn’t make it any easier.

Thus, the state proceeded with settlement discussions between all three parties and began working with NOAA to establish a habitat conservation plan for the whales and get an incidental take permit for the fishery. The process could take up to two years. In the meantime, for some areas, particularly south of Mendocino County, the commercial fishery is scheduled to close on April 1.

The state also is accelerating its rulemaking activities relative to gear, furthering its gear retrieval program, restricting buoy and line configurations and furthering support for the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, Bonham said.

However, there’s also an equity issue, he said.

“It’s time to think about a refined approach to how we manage fixed gear in the water,” noting that recreational crab fishing could have similar issues with whale entanglements as the commercial crabbers have had.

PCFFA Executive Director supported the director’s comments.

“You can’t overstate the impact,” Oppenheim said of the effect on commercial fishermen and processors. “[It was] a seismic shock to our industry.”

The confidential nature of the settlement discussions did not allow any of the parties to discuss potential solutions with the broader fleet, leaving many crabbers frustrated when the agreement was finally disclosed. The fleet had less than a month to remove their gear from the water.

Oppenheim described the past few months as the worst period of his professional career, but it pales in comparison to the livelihoods of his members, he said. Many fishermen are losing the spring fishery on which they depend. Others had to delay their fishing seasons due to elevated levels of domoic acid, so the early closure only made things worse.

Now, recreational fishermen and other fixed gear fishermen may face the same quandary. Entanglements in other fisheries could have an impact on the settlement agreement.

Sport fishermen noted there are vast differences between commercial and sport crabbing gear and sport fishermen should not be subject to the same settlement agreement.

It’s manifestly unfair to apply that settlement on parties who had no representation to the discussion, said George Osborne, a lobbyist for the Coastside Fishing Club. Osborn said the club insists that any management measures on recreational crabbers be proportionate to the degree that anglers may be contributing to the whale and turtle entanglements.

Commission President Eric Sklar said the commission and managers recognize the differences between the fisheries.

The Marine Resources Committee will continue the discussion when it meets on July 11.

This article was republished with permission from SeafoodNews.com

Feds Agree to Expand Habitat Protections for Northwest Orcas

April 16, 2019 — The federal government says that by October it will propose expanded habitat protections off Washington, Oregon and California for Pacific Northwest orcas.

The announcement comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which sued in 2018 to make officials move more quickly to protect the endangered orcas.

The whales spend their summers in the waters between Washington state and Canada, but about two-thirds of the year they migrate and forage for salmon off the West Coast. The conservation group said the National Marine Fisheries Service had been dragging its feet in designating “critical habitat” for the whales in those foraging and migration areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

CALIFORNIA: Fishermen Reeling After Lawsuit Brings Early Closure to Crab Season

April 11, 2019 — Bay Area crab fishermen were racing to haul in their crab traps following the settlement of a lawsuit that is shutting down the commercial dungeness crab season nearly two months early.

Crab season, which opens in November and normally runs until the end of June, is shutting down April 15th as part of a settlement aimed at reducing the number of whale entanglements in crab gear. The settlement follows a lawsuit filed by the environmental group Center For Biological Diversity targeting the State of California over an increase in entanglements.

“We’ve always believed there were common sense solutions to this problem,” said Steve Jones, spokesman for CBD, “and we feel by working with the state and the crabbers we’ve found one in this case.”

Fishermen said they were blind-sided by the settlement, getting notice of the early shutdown only two weeks before the deadline. Earlier this week in the fishing hamlet of Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast, boats filled with crab traps pulled in to the docks to unload their traps.

Read the full story at NBC Los Angeles

Groups sue to restrict salmon fishing, help Northwest orcas

April 4, 2019 — Federal officials say they may restrict salmon fishing off the West Coast to help the Pacific Northwest’s critically endangered killer whales, but two environmental groups are suing anyway to ensure it happens.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit nearly two decades ago to force the U.S. government to list the orcas as endangered, and the Wild Fish Conservancy asked the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday to order officials to reconsider a 2009 finding that commercial and recreational fisheries did not jeopardize the orcas’ survival.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a letter early last month indicating that it intends to do so. Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the point of the lawsuit is to ensure they finish the job with urgency, given the plight of the whales, and to take short-term steps in the meantime to help provide more of the orcas’ favored prey, Chinook salmon.

“We have got to figure out how to get them more salmon,” she said. “Since 2009 it’s become much more crystallized just how critical prey availability is to their reproductive success and survival.”

The Endangered Species Act requires the government to certify that any actions it approves won’t jeopardize the survival of a listed species. In the 2009 review, experts found that it wasn’t clear how a lack of prey affected orcas, but that the fisheries were not likely to contribute to their extinction.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

CDFW, Center for Biological Diversity, PCFFA Agree to Whale Entanglement Settlement

March 28, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In less than a month, California crabbers will have to pack in their crab pots and end their season, thanks to a settlement agreement filed in federal court Tuesday.

The legal settlement protects whales and sea turtles from entanglement in commercial Dungeness crab gear. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in October 2017 after a drastic increase in the number of whale entanglements off the West Coast.

In a joint statement between the Center, CDFW and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, who intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of the fishing industry, the entities said Californians will be pleased to know that Dungeness crab will be caught off the coast with greater care for endangered wildlife under the settlement. The early closure this year is just one of many stipulations in the settlement.

“As I’ve said many times, no one wants whale entanglements to happen,” CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham said in the press release. “This agreement represents hours of intense negotiation to help ensure they don’t happen while supporting the resiliency of the crab fishery in the long run. I am thankful for the leadership of the Center for Biological Diversity and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations who realized something needed to be done together.”

“This is great news for whales and sea turtles fighting extinction off California’s coast,” Kristen Monsell, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney, said in the statement. “The settlement will reduce serious threats from crab gear to these beautiful and highly endangered animals. This agreement is a turning point that gets us closer to zero entanglements and a healthy ocean.”

The settlement, subject to court approval, creates a comprehensive approach to the problem of whale entanglements. It expedites state regulation, ensures stakeholder input from the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group and formalizes a first-ever commitment by CDFW to pursue a federal permit for protecting endangered species. While these steps are executed, the settlement calls for this year’s crab season to end three months early and prescribes protective measures for future springtime fishing seasons, when the greatest number of whales are present off the California coast.

In November 2018, CDFW announced it would seek a federal permit under the Endangered Species Act to address protected species interactions with the crab fishery. Obtaining a permit and developing a conservation plan as part of that process can take years, so the settlement spells out interim protections.

“This settlement represents the path back to normality for California’s crab fishery with built-in protections for whales and crab fishing operations under the Endangered Species Act,” PCFFA Executive Director Noah Oppenheim said in the statement. “The past several years have been extraordinarily challenging for fishing families, and the actions we’re taking here are no exception. But in the end, we’re going to emerge together with a resilient, prosperous, and protective fishery that will continue to feed California and the nation.”

However, as word got out that crabbers would have to pull their gear soon, frustration and anger followed.

Bodega Bay crab fisherman Tony Anello was quoted in the Press-Democrat as saying, “It hurts. Guys like me, right now I want to fish to the end.”

Most of the crab season is over in the first few weeks after it opens. As the crab supply dwindles, ex-vessel prices frequently rise and some of the fishermen rely on the limited supply for small markets in the spring and summer.

Already many large processors have stopped buying crab and turned to other fisheries as the pink shrimp and salmon seasons are set to open soon.

Fishermen and processors in other states are still waiting to understand the full ramifications of the agreement. What it will mean for next year’s fishery, whether the Center may sue other states, how regulations will change are all in question right now.

For example, the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, started in 2015 in reaction to whale entanglements, has made progress, but apparently not enough to satisfy the Center. Kristin Monsell, the CBD attorney, was once a member of the Working Group at its inception, according to working group records, but CBD pulled out of the group later.

Like California’s working group, Oregon and Washington have developed similar entities to deal with entanglements. They too have representatives of sport and commercial fishermen, ENGOs, industry, marine mammal experts and state and federal managers.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

California could be held liable for whale entanglements

February 25, 2019 — The Center for Biological Diversity is hopeful its lawsuit filed over whale and sea turtle entanglements is nearing its conclusion after a federal judge suggested she may find the California Department of Fish and Wildlife liable for the entanglements, a center spokesman said.

“The judge said she was inclined to grant our motion and find the department liable for allowing these illegal whale entanglements,” spokesman Steve Jones said Friday after the hearing in United States District Court for the Northern District of California. “So the department’s lawyer asked her to delay that ruling for two weeks to see if our settlement talks can arrive at a remedy to the problem.”

The two parties have until March 13 to work out their differences and report back to the judge. If no settlement is reached, the judge will issue a finding.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the state Department of Fish and Wildlife in October 2017, when the number of whale entanglements was skyrocketing. The peak came in 2016 when there were 71 confirmed whale entanglements.

Preliminary 2018 numbers show there were 45 confirmed whale entanglements, according to NOAA Fisheries. The numbers reflect through Nov. 28, 2018, and are not final. Among the 2018 reports was an August 2018 humpback whale who was reported entangled off the coast of Eureka.

Read the full story at Mercury News