poor fishies

[Guest guest]

Feds decline to list white marlin as 'endangered'

RELATED ARTICLES

Feds Agree to Study Status of Steelhead

Expanding habitat for turtle may force changes on West Coast fishing industry

Conservationists Sue Over North Pacific Right Whales

Groups Sue to End Gulf Bluefin Fishing

/wildlife/article/28775

Despite repeated legal objections by environmentalists, the National Marine

Fisheries Service (NMFS) Friday said it will not list the Atlantic white marlin

as an endangered or threatened species.

 

Atlantic billfish, including white marlin, have historically been landed as

incidental catch of foreign and domestic commercial pelagic longline fisheries.

If listed as endangered, the action would have effectively shut down all U.S.

offshore commercial and recreational fishing in the Atlantic Ocean by law.

 

While the directed commercial effort is principally targeted toward tuna species

and swordfish, billfish occur in the same area as these other pelagic species,

making them susceptible to the gear. U.S. regulations require longline fishermen

to return all marlin - dead or alive - to the ocean.

 

Almost seven years ago, NMFS received a petition from the Biodiversity Legal

Foundation (subsequently renamed the Center for Biological Diversity, or CBD)

and James Chambers requesting the agency list the Atlantic white marlin

(Tetrapturus albidus) as a threatened or endangered species under the ESA.

 

 

The 2001 lawsuit prompted a 2002 stock status review, which showed that the

white marlin stock had not declined to levels at which it was then in danger of

extinction, according to NMFS.

 

However, the review team did note that the stock could decline to a level that

would warrant ESA protection “if fishing mortality was not reduced

significantly and relatively quickly.â€Â

 

Still, NMFS ruled against listing the fish under the ESA that year.

 

Subsequently, CBD and the Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) filed a

complaint in the district court for the District of Columbia challenging NMFS’

decision.

 

The agency reached a court-approved settlement with the two environmental groups

over a year ago, which triggered the 2006 stock status review to

once-and-for-all decide whether the species needed federal protection under the

Endangered Species Act.

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius