Law

Some New England herring fishermen added their names to a federal lawsuit that argues that trawlers should not be allowed to drag their nets through groundfish spawning areas, which are closed to other types of fishing.

“To let these guys fish in a closed area is really inexcusable,” said Glenn Robbins of Eliot, who owns a purse seine vessel based out of Rockland. “They’re destroying the groundfish industry. The stock will never rebuild, as long as you’re letting people in there with trawlers.”

But the midwater trawl fishermen targeted by the lawsuit feel that their fleet does not negatively affect federally protected groundfish stocks and that the suit is essentially a red herring.

Read the complete story at Bangor Daily News.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has sided with the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction in its request for a restraining order barring federal fisheries regulators from shuttering the Harbor Loop fish brokerage for 10 days this summer.

Joining a legal battle between the auction and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that’s come to symbolize tensions between fishermen and their regulators, Coakley has now called for any sanction against the auction to be stayed until a pending U.S. District Court appeal of its violations is resolved.

To close the auction, the sales hub of the Gulf of Maine fishery, during its busiest season "would substantially harm the fishing and associated industries in Gloucester and the commonwealth," Coakley wrote in a "friend-of-the-court" brief filed Wednesday.

Read the story in full in the Gloucester Daily Times

 

A three-count National Marine Fisheries allegation against Edward Boynton arrived flawed and late.

The violations supposedly occurred in August, September and October 2005, when Boynton still owned the 42-foot Sissel B, a steel-hulled stern dragger, and when he still held a federal groundfishing permit as a commercial fisherman.

By the time Dierdre Casey, enforcement attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, got around to citing Boynton on April 17 for landing yellowtail flounder without having a "yellowtail authorization letter," he had been culled from the industry — his boat and permit sold off.

Read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full.

Three conservation organizations filed a lawsuit against the federal government for violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect two sea turtle species, including leatherback turtles that live off the coast of Oregon.

The lawsuit names the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to meet a 12-month legal deadline to respond to three separate petitions focusing on turtle populations on the East and West Coasts.

"Procrastination by the Fisheries Service simply means that more and more turtles are being caught and killed," said Ben Enticknap, Pacific project manager for Oceana, which joined the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project in the lawsuit. "Their legal and moral responsibility can only be fulfilled by moving quickly to establish protections for those imperiled species."

Read the complete story at Oregon Live.

The U.S. government is failing to adequately protect the world’s oldest and most imperiled sea turtles, leaving them vulnerable to capture and injury off the California and Oregon coasts, according to a lawsuit filed by three environmental groups in a San Francisco federal court Thursday.

New protections for the turtles, including as few as 3,000 nesting females remaining in the world, would result in stricter controls on gillnet and longline fishing, oil drilling and wave-energy projects, the groups argue.

The western Pacific leatherbacks travel 6,000 miles from Indonesia to forage for food off the Golden Gate, and the North Pacific loggerheads come from the Japanese archipelago to feed from Alaska to Baja.

Read the complete story at SF Gate.

Environmentalists want a federal judge to force fisheries managers to take action on lawsuits seeking stronger protections for sea turtles.

Three groups — Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project — filed a complaint today in San Francisco federal court, saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service have violated the Endangered Species Act by not responding within 12 months to lawsuits asking for the protections.

Lawyers for the groups said the initial three petitions were filed in 2007, and that the delay is hurting the waning populations of leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles off the U.S. coasts.

Read the complete story at Mercury News.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service today over violations of the Endangered Species Act. Specifically, the Fisheries Service failed to meet the 12-month legal deadline for responding to three separate petitions focusing on two sea turtle species in U.S. waters off the East and West coasts.

“This is a classic example of the Fisheries Service dragging its feet,” said David Allison, senior campaign director at Oceana. “Sea turtles can’t continue to wait for these essential protections. More sea turtles will be caught and killed with each passing day, pushing them closer to extinction.”

Two of the three petitions focus on populations of loggerhead sea turtles in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The groups are urging the Fisheries Service to designate the North Pacific and western North Atlantic loggerheads as distinct population segments and to uplist their status from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The petitions also call for increased protections in the loggerheads’ key nesting beaches and marine habitats.

Read the complete story at Trans World News.

The U.S. government is being sued over sea turtle protection, or rather lack thereof, by three conservation groups. The lawsuit has been filed against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over violations of the Endangered Species Act.

Three conservation groups are joining forces in the fight for endangered wildlife with the filing of a new lawsuit against the U.S. government.

Groups Oceana, The Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network have filed a suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service today over violations of the Endangered Species Act – citing failure to meet the 12-month legal deadline for responding to three separate petitions focusing on two sea turtle species in U.S. waters off the East and West coasts.

“This is a classic example of the Fisheries Service dragging its feet,” said David Allison, senior campaign director at Oceana. “Sea turtles can’t continue to wait for these essential protections. More sea turtles will be caught and killed with each passing day, pushing them closer to extinction.”

Read the complete story at Terra Curve.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service are being sued by three conservation groups for violations of the Endangered Species Act, specifically failure to protect loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles in U.S. waters.

Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network filed the lawsuit for failing to meet the legal deadline for responding to three petitions concerning the two turtle species in U.S. waters. In two of the petitions, the conservation groups are pushing for the designation of North Pacific and western North Atlantic loggerhead turtles as distinct populations, and for moving the status of the animals from ‘threatened’ to ‘endangered‘.

Increased protection for the turtle’s marine habitats and nesting beaches were also called for in the petitions. Leatherback sea turtles migrate over 6,000 miles from nesting beaches in Indonesia to the coasts of California and Oregon to feed on jellyfish, and the groups asked the Fisheries Service to designate those areas as critical habitat.

Read the complete story at Twilight Earth.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service today over violations of the Endangered Species Act. Specifically, the Fisheries Service failed to meet the 12-month legal deadline for responding to three separate petitions focusing on two sea turtle species in U.S. waters off the East and West coasts.

"This is a classic example of the Fisheries Service dragging its feet," said David Allison, senior campaign director at Oceana. "Sea turtles can’t continue to wait for these essential protections. More sea turtles will be caught and killed with each passing day, pushing them closer to extinction."

Two of the three petitions focus on populations of loggerhead sea turtles in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The groups are urging the Fisheries Service to designate the North Pacific and western North Atlantic loggerheads as distinct population segments and to uplist their status from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The petitions also call for increased protections in the loggerheads’ key nesting beaches and marine habitats.

Read the complete story at Oceana.