Saving Seafood

‘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.   

“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 news release.

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

 

The Trump Administration Just Got Sued Over an “Unusual Mortality Event” in the Ocean

February 23, 2018 — On January 22, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration got word of a juvenile, North Atlantic right whale carcass floating off the coast of Virginia. Later identified as whale #3893, the 39-foot, 10-year-old female was towed to shore, where researchers examined her partially-decomposed remains. A few days later, preliminary necropsy findings indicated that the whale died of “chronic entanglement,” meaning it was caught in rope or line, according to a report from NOAA.

It was the first right whale to die in 2018, but it comes on the heels of the deaths of 17 right whales in the North Atlantic in 2017—a record setting number that is more than all right whale mortalities in the five previous years combined. NOAA researchers are calling the trend an “unusual mortality event”—a particularly concerning phenomenon, as North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species. There are only about 450 left in the wild, according to NOAA, and at the current rate, scientists predict the species could be functionally extinct in fewer than 25 years.

NOAA hasn’t determined the cause of the “unusual mortality event,” but some are looking right at Washington, and at NOAA itself. A new lawsuit, filed January 18 in US District Court in Washington, D.C., argues specifically that the Trump administration is at least partly responsible for failing to adequately address this epidemic.

Between 2010 and 2016, 85 percent of diagnosed whale deaths were the result of entanglement, typically in commercial fishing gear. The plaintiffs—the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Humane Society—allege that President Trump’s Department of Commerce, of which NOAA is a branch, is in violation of the 1973 Endangered Species Act and the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act over their management of the North Atlantic lobster fishery, which “frequently entangles right whales,” according to the suit. Under the Endangered Species Act, the plaintiffs point out, any action, direct or indirect, by a federal agency must not be “likely to jeopardize” any endangered or threatened species.

Read the full story at Mother Jones

 

Interior to Hold Massive Sale of Offshore Oil and Gas Leases

February 21, 2018 — The Interior Department announced Friday that the sale of leases on 77.3 million acres off the Southeast coast for oil and gas exploration will occur on March 21.

The sale, which Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said is the largest in U.S. history, will consist of leases off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It includes all currently unleased areas in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of President Trump’s American Energy Dominance strategy,” Bernhardt said. “A strong offshore energy program supports tens of thousands good paying jobs and provides the affordable and reliable energy we need to heat homes, fuel our cars, and power our economy.”

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that is heavily involved in environmental issues asked “How stupid can we be?” when she learned of the scheduled lease sale.

“The Gulf Coast is consistently nailed by hurricanes and yet our government insists on an energy strategy that exacerbates these hurricanes,” she said.

“A real energy strategy would be one that pursues renewables full speed ahead. Their so-called energy strategy is really a scheme for corrupt politicians to enrich themselves and their cronies,” Rolfes added.

Raleigh Hoke, campaign director of the Gulf Restoration Network, also took a dim view of the Interior Department announcement.

“We are disappointed that this Administration is moving forward with yet another lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico while simultaneously rolling back key safety measures to protect workers and the environment,” Hoke said. “Oil spills and accidents are an everyday occurrence in the Gulf, and we’re still at risk of a major catastrophe like the 2010 BP drilling disaster. We need stronger safety requirements, not weaker, and an end to all new offshore leasing in the Gulf.”

“Trump’s auctioning off this massive amount of our ocean while at the same time proposing to rollback important environmental and safety requirements,” agreed Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

California: Bill would allow crab season to close temporarily for whale entanglements

February 21, 2018 — North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire is looking to make changes to the state’s Fish and Game Code with the Fisheries Omnibus Bill, SB 1309, which he introduced Friday.

Several of the provisions in the bill would impact local fisherman and local practices. And, according to McGuire, several of the changes were introduced at the request of fishermen.

Specifically, one provision would update what McGuire called “antiquated regulations” for the Humboldt Bay anchovy fleet.

The bill would establish one 60-ton limit on anchovies taken from Humboldt Bay between May 1 and December 1 each year, rather than two 15-ton limits for specific time periods each year.

“Humboldt Bay has always been subject to its own anchovy fishery regulations,” he said. “The Fishing Omnibus Bill brings the Humboldt Bay regulation in line with the rest of the state.”

Several provisions of SB 1309 deal with the Dungeness crab fishing industry — one would allow the director of California Department of Fish and Wildlife to temporarily close a crabbing season in the event of a whale entanglement, another would create new regulations for lost crabbing gear.

“This bill would authorize the director, upon the unanimous recommendation of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, as defined, to, on an emergency basis, close Dungeness crab season in any waters due to whale entanglements, or reopen Dungeness crab season in those waters if the risk of whale entanglements has abated,” the proposed bill states.

The working group is made up of commercial and recreational fishermen, environmental organization representatives, members of the disentanglement network, and state and local agencies, according to the Ocean Protection Council website.

“Two seasons ago there was an entanglement in Monterey Bay,” McGuire said Monday. “The director of Fish and Wildlife didn’t have the authority to close crab season even though there was an entanglement. The crab fleet came to the committee and asked us to change this provision in law, which is why we are advancing this fix in the omnibus bill.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit alleging Fish and Wildlife violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing crab fishing, said McGuire’s bill does not go far enough.

Read the full story at the Eureka Times-Standard