I strongly oppose raising the limits of the number of sea turtles allowed to be
caught in the Hawaii-based shallow-set longline swordfish fishery. Every death or
injury of a sea turtle in this fishery has serious consequences for their future
survival. Allowing more sea turtles to be killed or injured in the swordfish longline
fishery means jeopardy for the species. Even holding the line on the existing
fishery as proposed in "Alternative 1A" is unlikely to be protective enough. All
other alternatives proposed in the regulation (1B to 1F) are completely
unacceptable.
The expansion of the Hawaii-based longline fishery would:
• Violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because the ESA requires NMFS
to ensure that sea turtle populations not only continue to survive, but recover;
• Violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act because the Hawaii pelagic
longline fishery is known to injure and kill humpback whales and false killer
whales, but NMFS has yet to take the required steps to reduce fishery-related
harm to these species;
• Violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA) because the existing Hawai'i-
based longline fishery kills migratory birds that are protected under the MBTA and
an expanded fishery will kill more; and
• Violate the the Magnuson-Stevens Act because this federal law requires
fishery managers to end overfishing immediately and rebuild overfished
populations of bigeye and yellowfin tuna, not increase catch levels of these
species in the Hawaii longline fishery.
Scott Eanes
Comment from scott eanes
This is comment on Proposed Rule
International Fisheries Regulations; Fisheries in the Western Pacific; Pelagic Fisheries; Hawaii-based Shallow-set Longline Fishery
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