January 7, 2015 — (CN) – The D.C. Circuit cut the line on a case accusing the government of failing to protect ocean fish that feed New York and New Jersey eagles and striped bass.

Led by the New Jersey-based Anglers Conservation Network and its founder, Capt. Paul Eidman, the case centers on four dwindling stocks of fish – alewife, blueback herring, American shad and hickory shad – that school in the Atlantic Ocean from New York to North Carolina.

As those fish migrate up rivers during their annual spawning in the spring, they are prey for bald eagles, ospreys and other birds, like cormorants and gulls, as well as for other fish at sea and for striped bass making their annual spawning run into many of the same rivers.

The case at hand contends that there are even fewer river herrings and shads available for bigger species on the food chain, thanks to a 2013 inaction by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, one of eight established by the 1976 Fishery Conservation Act, or Magnuson-Stevens Act.

That year, the council was considering adopting Amendment 15 to add river herring and shad to the 1983 Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan.

Rather than approving the amendment, however, the council voted 10-9 to table the issue for three years while a working group studied the fish further.

The plaintiffs say this decision violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act, but U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed the complaint on Sept. 30, 2014.

A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit affirmed Tuesday.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service