US Fish and Wildlife Service Archives

Federal judge rules FDA must reevaluate effects of potential GE salmon escape

November 9, 2020 — AquaBounty Technologies is facing another legal battle over its AquAdvantage salmon, as a California court ruled last week that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated core environmental laws in approving genetically engineered salmon for sale and consumption.

On 5 November, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled the FDA ignored serious possible environmental consequences by approving genetically engineered salmon, and was also violating the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge also ruled the FDA approval was in violation of the Endangered Species Act, as the agency did not consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service before taking an action that “may affect” a listed or endangered species.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Lawsuit: Pipeline could push 2 fish species to extinction

October 29, 2020 — Environmental groups have filed a legal challenge against the Mountain Valley Pipeline that says the project could push two endangered species of fish to extinction.

The Roanoke Times reports that the legal challenge was filed Tuesday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It involves the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter species of fish.

The route of the 300-mile long pipeline would go from northern West Virginia to southwestern Virginia and connect with an existing pipeline in North Carolina.

The coalition of environmental groups also asked the federal appeals court to review a recent biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency had found that construction of the pipeline is not likely to jeopardize protected fish, bats and mussels.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBS 19

Habitats for endangered green sea turtles will be federally protected in Florida

August 21, 2020 — Endangered green sea turtles will have some of their nesting beaches in Florida protected by federal agencies under a new legal agreement with conservation groups.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service must designate protected critical habitats for green sea turtles by June 30, 2023, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement Thursday.

The agencies will likely consider proposing protections for beaches where green turtles nest in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as offshore oceanic habitat in the Southeast and on the West Coast, according to the agreement. These critical habitats designations don’t prohibit development, but they require that any project that’s permitted by a federal agency must minimize harm to these special areas.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald

They were trying to save a species. Instead, scientists created a fish that’s part sturgeon, part paddlefish, all accident

July 22, 2020 — A group of Hungarian aquatic scientists was looking for ways to save the fish responsible for some of the world’s finest caviar from extinction.

Instead, they made a Frankenfish.

But their accidental hybrid, a fish that’s part American paddlefish and part Russian sturgeon, could benefit fish farming and the industry’s carbon footprint. And on their own, the fish are a marvel of biology.

Though they haven’t been formally named yet, fellow fishery researchers have given them the moniker “sturddlefish.”

The “sturddlefish” study appeared this month in the scientific journal Genes.

How it happened

The initial goal of the study was to encourage the critically endangered sturgeon to reproduce asexually. That isn’t quite how it went.

The Russian sturgeon, instead, hybridized with the American paddlefish, the first time the two have ever hybridized successfully in captivity. The paddlefish was originally meant to provide sperm — not its DNA — to help the sturgeon reproduce on its own.
The sturgeon isn’t so genetically different from paddlefish — they belong to the same group, Acipenseriformes. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, sturgeon and paddlefish both provide tasty caviar.

Read the full story at CNN

Roughly 1,400 pounds of shark fins seized in Florida

February 4, 2020 — Inspectors with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Monday they had seized roughly 1,400 pounds of shark fins hidden in boxes in Florida last month.

The agency said the shipment of severed fins arrived on Jan. 24 at Miami Port of Entry in roughly 18 boxes. They were believed to have come from South America and likely bound for Asia.

Officials estimated the total value of the fins to be worth between $700,000 and $1 million. They waited until Monday to share the news outside of law enforcement.

“The goal of this seizure is to protect these species while deterring trackers from using U.S. ports as viable routes in the illegal shark fin trade,” said Christina Meister, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, according to the Miami Herald.

Read the full story at Fox News

Environmental groups file federal suit seeking green sea turtle habitat protections

January 8, 2020 — Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, 8 January, against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming it has not done enough to protect green sea turtle habitats across the country from a variety of threats.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Sea Turtle Oversight Protection claim NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined nearly four years ago that the turtles still required protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because of threats from climate change and rising sea levels.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

U.S. senators propose grant program to help restore Chesapeake Bay habitats

September 30, 2019 — Maryland’s U.S. senators and colleagues from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed introduced a bill Friday to create a federal grant program for projects focused on restoring the bay’s fish and wildlife habitats.

The Chesapeake WILD Act aims to replicate a similar program that provides $5 million annually for such projects in the Delaware River basin. The legislation would create a funding stream for work to restore wetlands, improve stream water quality, and plant trees and other vegetation.

If the grant program is approved, Congress would have to allocate money for it in the appropriations process for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Department of the Interior.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

NOAA admin defends budget in House oversight hearing

May 24, 2019 — There’s likely going to be no more withering nor efficient criticism of the Trump administration’s coastal economic and environmental policy goals than U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman launched into at the outset of a U.S. House subcommittee meeting Tuesday.

The House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife met to discuss the administration’s fiscal year 2020 budgets for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The California Democrat said the Trump administration’s proposed budget shows the president “does not value oceans, wildlife or the communities that depend on healthy ecosystems.”

Huffman cited a $250 million cut to USFWS and a nearly $1 billion cut to NOAA. He said some Republican members of the subcommittee may find these cuts wise, though he did not.

“From climate change denial to a national debt that’s ballooning thanks to huge tax cuts to billionaires, to budgets like this that abrogate any notion of stewardship for future generations, young people today could be forgiven for thinking that the generation currently in power is reckless and hedonistic.”

U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., indeed did say the proposed cuts in the budget were not only the proper way to go, but should go further in consolidating perceived overlaps between NOAA and USFWS and cutting away more spending programs.

Read the full story at The Brunswick News

Ambitious new plan to save Atlantic salmon has big price tag

February 15, 2019 — The federal government outlined an ambitious, potentially costly new plan to restore Atlantic salmon in the United States, where rivers teemed with the fish before dams, pollution and overfishing decimated their populations.

The Atlantic salmon has declined in the U.S. to the point where the last remaining wild populations of in the U.S. exist only in a handful of rivers in Maine. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are offering a new recovery plan to bring back those fish, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The plan would take decades to fully implement, and it focuses on strategies such as removals of dams, installations of fish passages and increasing the number of salmon that survive in the ocean. It states that the estimated cost is about $24 million per year, not including money federal departments already spend on salmon recovery work.

How that money would materialize at this point is unclear. But the plan gives the species a roadmap to recovery, said Peter Lamothe, program manager for the Maine fish and wildlife complex for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It gives all of the partners involved in this what to shoot for — what we collectively need to achieve to recover the species,” Lamothe said. “It gives us a path forward.”

Atlantic salmon are readily available to seafood consumers because of extensive aquaculture, but the wild fish have been declining in the Gulf of Maine since the 19th century.

Back then, 100,000 adult salmon returned annually to Maine’s Penobscot River, which remains the most important river for the species in America.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Federal shutdown effects on February NPFMC Portland meeting

January 11, 2019 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

IS THE COUNCIL IMPACTED BY THE SHUTDOWN? The Council staff is at work and conducting business as usual. However, most of our federal partners at the National Marine Fisheries Service (Alaska Region and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center), the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are on furlough during the shutdown.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS? Since many NMFS scientists and fishery management specialists are key contributors to the Council’s analyses, Plan Teams and Committees, the Council is rescheduling or modifying the agendas for several meetings where NMFS representatives were expected to provide pivotal presentations, reports, and/or analyses.

WHAT ABOUT THE COUNCIL’S FEBRUARY 2019 MEETING? The Council’s February meeting in Portland, OR at the Benson Hotel will be shortened to occur from February 4-10 and will still include meetings of the SSC and Advisory Panel. If the partial government shutdown remains in place, the Council will conduct as much business as possible given the federal furlough.

The following agenda items have been postponed to a future meeting: C2 Observer Program Fees Initial Review and FMAC report, and D4 Economic Data Reports Discussion Paper. Additionally, the following items may be postponed as well: B4 State Department Report on Central Arctic Ocean fishing agreement; D6 Economic SAFE Report; D7 Marine Mammal Conservation Status Report. Additionally, the presentation on Saltonstall-Kennedy grant results may also be postponed. The updated agenda and additional information can be found at npfmc.org.

The Council may not be able to take final action on any agenda items during this meeting unless the meeting has been announced in the Federal Register at least 14 days before the Council takes a final action. The Council could make a ‘preliminary final determination’ on these issues, and take final action at a later meeting. With respect to the Norton Sound Red King Crab Harvest Specifications, which requires timely action to open the fishery, the Council may hold a teleconference meeting as soon as the Federal Register notification requirements can be met, allow additional public comments, and take final action on that issue.

UPCOMING PLAN TEAM AND COMMITTEE MEETINGS:

Further information and updates on all Council meetings can be found at meetings.npfmc.org.

Crab Plan Team: The Council’s Crab Plan Team will meet January 23 – 25 in Nome, Alaska. The meeting has been shortened to start on Wednesday, as some agenda items have been postponed until May as NMFS staff may not be available.

Halibut ABM Stakeholder Committee: The Committee will meet on February 4th at the Benson Hotel in Portland, OR. There are no changes to the previously announced agenda.

Fishery Monitoring Advisory Committee: This Committee meeting has been postponed, and will likely be rescheduled to occur during the April 2019 Council meeting in Anchorage, AK. The Committee was primarily scheduled to review the observer fee analysis (which has been withdrawn from the agenda), and other topics.

Ecosystem Committee: The Committee will meet on February 5th at the Benson Hotel in Portland, OR. The agenda will likely be modified to remove the presentation on marine mammal conservation status, unless NMFS staff are available to provide this report.

At this point, no further changes have yet been proposed to Council Plan Team and Committee meetings that are scheduled for mid-February and beyond.