NMFS Drags Feet on Protecting False Killer Whales, New Lawsuit Contends

posted in: EH-XTRA, Endangered Species, Fisheries | 0

Posted 05/24/2012 

 

Earthjustice is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service over the agency’s foot-dragging in protecting false killer whales from Hawai`i-based longline fishing vessels.

NMFS’ own studies show that the whales are being hooked, injured, and even killed by interactions with the longlines, at a rate far higher than the animals’ population can sustain. According to the complaint, the deadline for NMFS to have developed a take reduction plan to protect the whales passed more than six months ago.

The action, filed in federal court in Honolulu, is taken under a provision of the Marine Mammal Protection Act that establishes clear deadlines for NMFS to take action to protect marine mammals – a provision that, the Earthjustice press release states, “the agency routinely ignores.”

“One group of false killer whales is down to the last 170 animals, the tuna longline fishery is killing them at three times the rate they can sustain, and yet nothing is being done to protect them,” said David Henkin, the Earthjustice attorney representing plaintiffs Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

In a letter dated April 26, 2012, NMFS regional administrator Mike Tosatto said he agreed that the “conservation needs of false killer whales are of paramount concern,” but added that the agency needed more time to revise the take reduction plan. Henkin said he was puzzled by the agency’s failure to act. A preliminary take reduction plan had proposed the use of weak hooks by longliners as the best way to bring about an immediate reduction in serious injuries and deaths — an idea, he noted, that vessel owners had “grudgingly accepted.”

Just a month before this lawsuit, filed under the MMPA, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued NMFS over its failure to act on a petition to add the Hawaiian insular population of false killer whales to the federal list of endangered species. Again, the deadline for acting on the NRDC petition expired more than six months before the NRDC filed its complaint.

To read the Earthjustice complaint, click here: FKW_EJ_

NRDC submitted the petition on September 30, 2009. The NMFS published a notice in the Federal Register of January 5, 2010, stating that the petition presented “substantial scientific and commercial information” to support listing. In November 2010, it issued a finding that the Hawaiian insular population of false killer whales “is in danger of extinction throughout its range” and proposed a rule listing it as an endangered species.

The Endangered Species Act requires agencies to issue a final rule within a year of the proposed rule – a deadline that passed in November 2011.

False killer whales have been known to interact with longline fishing gear, leading to injury and death. But, as the NRDC notes in its complaint, fisheries also threaten the animals “by reducing prey species, such as tuna, bullfish, wahoo, and mahimahi.” The complaint goes on to note that, “According to NMFS, bigeye tuna is currently overfished in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, yellowfin tuna and mahimahi around Hawai`i are declining in abundance.”

To read the NRDC complaint, click here:

FKW_-_Complaint_(FILED)

 

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