Saving Seafood

Court Denies California’s Attempt to Delay Whale Entanglement Case

February 1, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A federal court has rejected the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s bid to delay a lawsuit alleging it’s not doing enough to prevent its commercial Dungeness crab fishery from entangling whales and sea turtles in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the department in October 2017 after whale entanglement numbers broke records for three straight years.

“This is an important win in our fight to protect whales and sea turtles from suffering and dying in crabbing gear. It’s time for California regulators to stop delaying and take action,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center, said in a press release. “The court recognized that it can’t just sit on the sidelines while state officials have no plan to prevent entanglements. Talking and holding endless meetings isn’t enough.”

U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney denied the department’s motion to stay the case for two and a half years while it applies for an ESA Section 10 federal permit, which would require preventive measures. California sent a letter to NOAA last year, indicating the agency’s plans to formally file for the permit.

In the meantime, California has taken steps to avoid whale entanglements. The Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group published a best practices guide for fishermen It also established the Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program (RAMP) to support the state in working collaboratively with experts (fishermen, researchers, NGOs, etc.) to identify and assess elevated levels of entanglement risk and determine the need for management options to reduce risk of entanglement. Working with federal scientists, the group also solicits periodic flyovers to find concentrations of gear and concentrations of whales. With that information, fishermen can voluntarily get their gear and/or try to avoid whale interactions.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations filed as an intervenor in the lawsuit and continues to support the industry in its efforts to avoid whale entanglement.

“No commercial fisherman wants to entangle whales or sea turtles in their fishing gear – doing so is not only a public relations disaster, but will likely destroy that gear, can damage their boats and can even be life-threatening,” the PCFFA states in its Memorandum in Support of Motion for Intervention in March 2018. “Many commercial fishermen voluntarily participate in programs to identify and rescue marine animals (especially whales) from entanglements in commercial fishing gear, often at great personal peril.”

On Feb. 22 the court is scheduled to consider the Center’s motion for summary judgment, the Center said in a press release.

In 2016 federal officials confirmed that the California commercial Dungeness crab fishery entangled at least 23 animals. As of late November, at least 36 whale entanglements had been reported off California in 2018, including at least five humpback whales entangled in California commercial Dungeness crab gear, the Center said in the statement.

California’s attention to this issue a few years ago has resulted in several gear workshops that included researchers, developers and fishermen coming together to try to solve or mitigate whale entanglement issues on the entire West Coast. Both Oregon and Washington now have their own gear/entanglement groups, working on problems and proposing incremental steps to prevent entanglements. Washington also has notified NOAA it intends to apply for an ESA Section 10 permit for its Dungeness crab fishery.

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

Groups: US must consider how salmon fishing hurts orcas

December 19, 2018 — The federal government is violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to consider how salmon fishing off the West Coast is affecting endangered killer whales, two conservation groups said Tuesday as they threatened a lawsuit.

The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy notified President Donald Trump’s administration they intend to file a lawsuit within 60 days unless officials reevaluate whether the fishing further jeopardizes orcas that frequent the inland waters of the Pacific Northwest.

“We can’t allow business as usual in the salmon fisheries while Southern Resident killer whales are starving to death,” Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release.

The orcas’ plight has received much attention this year as scientists warn that they’re on the brink of extinction. There are just 74 left, the lowest number since more than 50 were captured for aquarium display in the 1970s, and no calf born in the last three years has survived. One mother whale captured attention around the world this summer when she carried her dead calf on her head for 17 days in an apparent attempt to revive it.

Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced what he called a “herculean” $1.1 billion plan to help the population recover. The Democrat said the money would go toward protecting and restoring habitat for salmon, especially chinook, the orcas’ favored prey; boosting production from salmon hatcheries; storm-water cleanup; and quieting vessel traffic, which can interfere with the whales’ hunting and communication.

But conservationists say more must be done. While a federal judge has ordered the government to consider boosting salmon runs by breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River, that prospect remains highly controversial and Republicans in Congress have vowed to oppose it.

Unlike other populations of orcas, which feed on marine mammals including seals, the southern residents eat salmon — primarily chinook. The conservation groups said Tuesday that one way to help them immediately would be to catch fewer salmon off the coast, where the whales spend their winters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

Appeals court blocks another US gov’t effort to overcome Mexico gillnet import ban

November 30, 2018 — The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Wednesday shot down an effort by the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other federal agencies to end a four-month-old ban on the import of Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught in the country with the use of gillnets.

The decision to reject a “stay of the order” request backs a US Court of International Trade (CIT) ruling, issued in July, that was sought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Center for Biological Diversity and Animal Welfare Institute as part of an effort to protect the endangered vaquita porpoise in the northern Gulf of California from being driven into extinction by pressuring the Mexican government.

Widely decimated by the use of gillnets in pursuit of the totoaba — another endangered fish sought for its swim bladder due to black market demand in China — there are believed to be a little more than a dozen vaquita remaining.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Conservation group seeks judgement in California crab gear lawsuit

November 1, 2018 — A year after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California regarding its Dungeness crab fishery, the conservation nonprofit has requested the judge in the case issue a summary judgement ruling in its favor.

A lawyer for the CBD said the organization filed the motion for summary judgement last week in the U.S. District Court’s North California District in hopes of preventing more animals from getting entangled in the crab traps set by commercial fishermen. Through July, there have been 22 whale entanglements this year, according to the group.

The federal Endangered Special Act prohibits encounters with humpback whales, blue whales, and leatherback sea turtles that could lead to injury or death, and a favorable ruling would force state officials to take action, Kristen Monsell, the center’s ocean’s program legal director, said in a statement.

“Another crab season starts (this month), creating a minefield of heavy gear that migrating whales must navigate,” she said. “We need the court to order state officials to stop causing the injury and death of endangered whales and sea turtles while managing this fishery.”

Judge Maxine M. Chesney isn’t scheduled to rule on the motion until 8 February.

Earlier this year, the state’s legislature passed an omnibus fisheries bill that called for the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to adopt rules that take into consideration the potential risk for entanglements. Until the regulations take effect, the state could restrict fishing for Dungeness crab in certain areas where the fishery “poses a significant risk” for whales and other marine life.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Federal court upholds ban on Mexican imports in vaquita case

October 24, 2018 — A federal court has upheld a ruling from July that banned seafood imports from Mexico harvested by a drift gillnet.

The decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade on Monday, 22 October came after Trump administration officials appealed Judge Gary S. Katzman’s temporary injunction against the practice. Conservation groups sued the administration seeking a ban in an attempt to save the vaquita, a small porpoise on the brink of extinction.

The porpoise lives in the Gulf of California and estimates put the species population at around a dozen. However, roughly half the stock dies each year in encounters with gillnets. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit in March and claimed the acceptance of Mexican seafood caught by those nets violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

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