Center for Biological Diversity Archives - Page 9 of 11

Hawaiian Coral is considered for federal protection

September 20, 2018 — Hawaiian cauliflower coral is one step closer to federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, according to the first review released on Wednesday by the National Marine Fisheries Service of a manufacturing sponsor of the Center for Biodiversity.

Nickname cauliflower, Pocillopora meandrina is often pink, green or cream-colored and is characterized by its branching colonies. Called Ko? A on Hawaiian, the coral is rich in rocky reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific and East Pacific.

“Information presented in the production and other readily available information in our files shows that the most important threat to P. meandrina throughout its assortment at present and in the future, and to the coral columns in the Indo-Pacific region, such as P. meandrina is a part off, marine warming and subsequent warming-induced coral bleeding and mortality, says the report.

Between 2014 and 2015, cauliflower coral was one of many species affected by severe bleeding events, in which single-cell organisms called zooxanthellae that live inside the coral structure and give that pigment expelled. Zooxanthellae can resettle in the coral, other times the organism dies.

Subsequent investigations of Hanauma Bay on Oahu in 2016 recorded evidence of bleeding in 64 percent of P. meandrina colonies, while 1.3 percent were “affected by total post bleaching mortality”. On the western coast of Big Island, 49.6 percent of all living corals were leaks lost.

“Corrosion protection ultimately needs to reduce global temperature increases by drastically reducing fossil fuels. Cauliflower coral is also threatened locally through land-based contamination, sedimentation and physical disturbance caused by human activities, “says the Center for Biological Diversity in a Press Release.

Read the full story at Vaaju

NMFS, ENGOs Agree to Deadlines for Humpback Whale Habitat Designations off West Coast

August 29, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation reached a settlement with the National Marine Fisheries Service last week to protect humpback whale habitat in the Pacific Ocean. the Center said the whales face threats from fisheries, ship strikes and oil spills.

The agreement, filed in federal district court in San Francisco, requires the National Marine Fisheries Service to follow the Endangered Species Act’s requirement to designate critical habitat by June 28, 2019, and finalize those boundaries a year later. Two Pacific Ocean humpback populations were listed as endangered, and a third as threatened, in September 2016.

“Today’s victory means Pacific humpback whales will be safer in their ocean home,” Center Attorney Catherine Kilduff said in a press release. “While delaying these protections, the Trump administration proposed opening the Pacific up to offshore oil drilling and let fishing gear tangle up dozens of humpbacks. This agreement ensures the whales will finally get the protections they need.”

One population of endangered humpback whales that feeds off California’s coast numbers around 400 individuals, meaning any death or injury from entanglement could hurt their recovery the Center said in the statement. Several whales were tangled in fishing lines from fixed gear fisheries in recent years, but many were also the victims of ship strikes.

Ship strikes and oil spills are the other major threats to West Coast humpback whales, according to the Center’s statement. A study found that an estimated 22 humpbacks off California, Oregon and Washington die each year after being hit by ships. That number could increase if additional offshore oil and gas drilling were allowed, as proposed by the Trump administration earlier this year. Additionally, potential oil spills increase the risk to whales and other marine life.

The three plaintiffs filed the suit in March.

The potential critical habitat areas will raise public awareness about what areas are essential for conservation, and provides substantive protections for the habitat from adverse modification by federal government activities, Kilduff said in an email. The habitat protections also will help safeguard ocean areas essential for migrating and feeding. Evidence shows that endangered or threatened species that have protected critical habitat are twice as likely to show signs of recovery as those without it, according to the three groups.

NMFS identified humpback whale populations that needed critical habitat designations in 2016. Those included the three that are, at times, in U.S. waters: the threatened Mexico population that feeds off the U.S. West Coast and Alaska and the endangered Central America population that feeds almost exclusively off California and Oregon. The agency revised the listing status of the humpback whale from a global population to 14 distinct population segments (DPS). However, NMFS also found that critical habitat for these three populations were not determinable when it identified the 14 humpback DPS.

According to the settlement, NMFS must pay $10,000 in attorney fees to the Center and the two other plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, the seafood industry remains concerned, awaiting the details. Fishermen and processors also are concerned about the Center’s lawsuit against the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, filed late last year, regarding whale entanglements.

Kilduff said this settlement will have no effect on the lawsuit against the state.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

Feds Agree to Designate Habitat for Endangered Humpbacks

August 27, 2018 — In a victory for humpback whales and environmentalists, the federal government agreed Friday to establish critical habitat protection for endangered or threatened whales by 2020.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the federal government earlier this year, accusing the National Marine Fisheries Service of not following through on a 2016 plan to designate two groups of Pacific Ocean humpback whales as endangered and a third group as threatened.

One group that feeds off the coast near California includes around 400 whales who are listed as endangered and face injury or death from fishing gear and other hazards.

In their Northern District of California lawsuit, the center said the federal government “has not made a critical habitat determination (i.e., proposing to designate critical habitat or finding that it would not be prudent to do so) for the Western North Pacific, Mexico, and Central America” populations of humpback whales.

The lawsuit said whales are also in danger from oil spills, being struck by boats and other hazards in the ocean. They called the federal government’s lack of action a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has announced plans to expand offshore oil and gas drilling across the United States, including the West Coast and Alaska.

The center filed a similar lawsuit against state of California claiming fishing lines, crab traps and other gear endangered whales along the Pacific Coast.

On Friday, the parties announced a settlement that would establish critical habitat protections for whale populations in the western North Pacific, Mexico and Central America by 2020. The agreement includes a timeline, beginning with a proposal to the Federal Register by June 2019, for the fisheries service to determine critical habitat.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

‘Our killer whales aren’t doing well:’ Lawsuit aims to protect struggling orcas

August 20, 2018 — Southern Resident Killer Whales are endangered and in decline.

Thursday a national environmental group filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. According to the suit, the National Marine Fisheries Service has failed to protect the winter habit of the Orcas.

“Our killer whales aren’t doing well,” said Sarah Yhlemann, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity who filed the lawsuit.

For 17 days a grieving mother Orca carried her dead calf more than 1,000 miles through the waters of the Salish Sea. An act of grief that environmentalist claim highlights the need to help the troubled Orcas.

“We know that protecting the whales themselves is absolutely important, but protecting their habit is really important too,” said Yhlemann.

The suit says NOAA has failed to act on a 2014 petition that includes expanding habitat protections to the Orcas’ winter foraging and migration areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California.

“Right now their full habitat is not protected for the winter and travel down the coast, they don’t have habit protections,” said Yhlemann.

The lawsuit is asking for what the law requires for endangered species: to protect the entire habit of the Southern Resident killers whales.

The animals were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2005, after the center sued to get the status. The following year, the fisheries service designated the inland waters of Washington state as critical habitat. The designation means federal agencies must ensure that activities they pay for, permit or carry out do not harm the habitat.

Read the full story at KOMO News

Conservation groups launch lawsuit to establish ‘protection zone’ for endangered orcas

August 2, 2018 –Conservation groups are putting the feds on notice. The Center for Biological Diversity and Orca Relief Citizens’ Alliance on Wednesday sent a notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to protect critically endangered orcas that live in the Pacific Northwest.

In November 2016, they petitioned the federal government to designate a “whale protection zone” in an area conservationists say is a critical to the population that has dropped to a 34-year low.

The latest move comes as heartbreaking images of J35, who has been carrying her dead orca calf for a week, highlight the struggles facing the critically endangered southern resident killer whales.

“What we are doing right now is just not working,” said Sarah Uhlemann with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at KIRO

Court Orders Seafood Import Ban to Save Vaquita

July 31, 2018 — Responding to a lawsuit filed by conservation groups, the U.S. Court of International Trade has ordered the U.S. Government to ban seafood imports from Mexico caught with gillnets that kill the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

As few as 15 vaquita remain, and almost half the population drowns in fishing gillnets each year. Without immediate additional protection, the porpoise could be extinct by 2021.

This is the life line the vaquita desperately needs, said Giulia Good Stefani, staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who argued the case before the Court.

The ruling follows a lawsuit filed in March by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Animal Welfare Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity, and it affirms Congress’ mandate under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act that the United States protect not just domestic marine mammals, but also foreign whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Hawaii Longline Swordfish Fishery Closed for Rest of Year; Industry Helped Negotiate Closure

May 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In the ups and downs of the Hawaiian swordfish fishery, the recent May 8 closure for the rest of the year was no surprise to the industry. Longliners worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service and plaintiffs of a recent lawsuit to comply with a court order.

The Turtle Island Restoration Network, Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice originally sued the Department of Commerce over a 2012 biological opinion that allowed the shallow set longline fishery to take a certain number of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles every year. The U.S. District Court of Hawaii ruled in NMFS’ favor, so the ENGOs appealed. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split decision on Dec. 27, 2017, affirming the BiOp regarding leatherback sea turtles, but not for loggerhead turtles. The Hawaii Longline Association, which filed as interveners, were party to the settlement negotiations with the plaintiffs and NMFS, which were outlined in a May 4, 2018 agreement and court order. The result for 2018 was closure for the rest of the year.

While ENGOs are cheering the outcome as a victory for sea turtles, it’s somewhat of a pyrrhic victory and does more to promote an agenda for the plaintiffs rather than have any actual effect this year.

“The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is supposed to be protecting our wildlife, has instead been illegally helping the longliners push sea turtles to the brink of extinction,” Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said in a press release. “We won’t allow it.”

The main swordfish season usually takes place in the winter, with most landings occurring by the end of March. This year was an anomaly, Hawaii Longline Association President Sean Martin said, in that the fishery reached its annual limit of turtle interactions in January, so the fleet was already done with swordfish for the year.

“We’re on the tail end of what would be the prime season anyway,” Martin said.

The fishery will open again on Jan. 1, 2019, no matter what, Martin said. Since the court vacated the 2012 biological opinion, NMFS is working on a new one. The agency could come back with a new incidental take statement for next year’s fishing season. Or, if the BiOp and corresponding take statement are not finished by Jan. 1, the fishery will open under an incidental take allowance approved by an earlier BiOp that allowed roughly half the number of turtle interactions as the 2012 BiOp.

Federal officials note the loggerhead turtles already show signs of recovery due to a history of better management measures, such as circle hooks and using mackerel for bait — squid bait is prohibited –has proven immensely effective worldwide. Most turtles caught in the fishery are released alive.

Those measures and more, implemented in the early 2000s, reduced sea turtle interactions in the fishery by 93 percent, the Council said. Observer coverage is 100 percent; all vessel owners and operators annually attend mandatory protected species workshops; all longline vessels are required to carry specified tools to safely remove hooks and lines from the turtles and to follow safe handling, resuscitation and release procedures; vessels are monitored through a mandatory satellite-based vessel monitoring system; and longline closed areas from 0 to 50 nautical miles of the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have existed since the early 1990s.

“The record of 99 percent live releases, only two mortalities in 24 years and increasing loggerhead abundance over the past two decades underscore the management success of the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery,” Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds said in a press release.

Martin said most of the 30 or so longline vessels will instead turn to the deep-set longline fishery for the remainder of the year, targeting tunas.

This story originally appeared in Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

Hawaii swordfish industry shut down to protect endangered turtles

May 11, 2018 — A federal court order to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtles has forced the National Marine Fisheries Service to immediately close the shallow-set longline fishery in Hawaii for the rest of the year.

A 2012 lawsuit filed by the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, was rejected in a Hawaii district court but they eventually won a split decision on appeal in December.

The parties reached an agreement Friday to settle the case. It included an immediate shutdown of the shallow-set longline fishery, which targets swordfish. NMFS implemented the closure Thursday.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Lawsuit aimed at protecting humpback whales filed against Trump administration

March 16, 2018 — Several conservation groups have joined together to file a lawsuit that claims the Trump administration has failed to protect humpback whales from fishing gear, ship strikes and oil spills.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation announced Thursday they have sued the Trump Administration for “failing to protect humpback whale habitat in the Pacific Ocean.” The lawsuit was filed in the federal district court in San Francisco.

The nonprofit groups hope the lawsuit will force the National Marine Fisheries Service to follow the Endangered Species Act’s requirement to designate critical habitat within one year of listing a species as threatened or endangered, and not authorize actions that would damage that habitat, according to a release.

Two Pacific Ocean humpback populations were listed as endangered and a third as threatened in September 2016.

“The federal government needs to protect critical humpback habitat that’s prone to oil spills and dangerously dense with fishing gear and ship traffic,” Catherine Kilduff, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “These whales need urgent action, not more delays.”

Read the full story at the Orange County Register

States: US government to rewrite 2 endangered species rules

March 16, 2018 — NEW ORLEANS — The Trump administration will rewrite rules governing how to choose areas considered critical to endangered species to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four trade groups, according to state attorneys general.

The endangered species director for an environmental nonprofit says that’s terrible news. Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity says the administration has “shown nothing but hostility toward endangered species.”

The attorneys general for Alabama and Louisiana said in news releases Thursday that the administration made the agreement Thursday to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four national trade groups, challenging two changes made in 2016.

According to the lawsuit, the rules are now so vague that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service “could declare desert land as critical habitat for a fish and then prevent the construction of a highway through those desert lands, under the theory that it would prevent the future formation of a stream that might one day support the species.”

A spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife referred a request for comment to the U.S. Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to phoned and emailed queries. A NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman did not immediately respond Thursday.

“We are encouraged that the Trump administration has agreed to revisit these rules, which threaten property owners’ rights to use any land that the federal government could dream that an endangered species might ever inhabit,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in his news release. “These Obama-era rules were not only wildly unreasonable, but contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Endangered Species Act.”

Greenwald said, “Their case didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times