Hawaii-based commercial longline fishers would be able to take a larger number of endangered sea turtles under a proposal from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Hawaii-based commercial longline fishers would be able to take a larger number of endangered sea turtles under a proposal from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The NMFS is proposing to revise the annual number of accidental bycatch incidents that may occur between Hawaii-based, open-ocean longline fishers and leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles.
In 2004, the NMFS established sea turtle conservation and management measures for the fishery and allowed the hooking or entangling of up to 16 leatherback and 17 loggerhead sea turtles. If the fishery reaches either limit, the NMFS closes the fishery for the remainder of the calendar year. The NMFS is now proposing to increase that limit to 26 leatherbacks and 34 loggerheads per year.
The critically endangered leatherback sea turtle is the largest in the world; both it and the endangered loggerhead sea turtle inhabit the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
This is not the first time NMFS has proposed raising the limit. A biological opinion in 2008 changed the interaction limit for loggerhead sea turtles, but in 2009, three environmental groups — the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance — sued NMFS and the U.S. Department of Commerce in federal district court.
Under a consent decree in 2011, the court ordered NMFS to issue a new biological opinion for the shallow-set fishery, and to continue to adhere to the annual interaction limit of 16 leatherbacks and 17 loggerheads as established in 2004, until that opinion is completed.
In an analysis issued in January, the government evaluated the impacts of the fishery on protected marine species, including several species of endangered turtles, and humpback whales, and concluded “the proposed action is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence (survival and recovery) of the species, nor is it likely to destroy or modify designated critical habitat,” according to a posting in today’s edition of the Federal Register.
Comments on the proposed rule, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2012-0068, will be accepted through July 11 by electronic submission at regulations.gov or by mail to Michael D. Tosatto, Regional Administrator, NMFS, Pacific Islands Region (PIR), 1601 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 1110, Honolulu, HI 96814-4700.
Email Peter Sur at psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com.