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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 8
April 2010
Loggerhead turtle ESA listing may change from ‘threatened’ to ‘endangered’; scallop group responds
WASHINGTON, DC – In a move that could have significant repercussions for commercial fishermen down the road, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are proposing to raise the status of loggerhead turtles from “threatened” to “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The proposal stems from two different petitions filed in 2007. The first, which came from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, asked for three things: that loggerhead sea turtles in the North Pacific be reclassified as a “distinct population segment” (DPS); that the DPS be given endangered status; and that critical habitat be designated for this newly defined grouping.
The second petition came from the CBD and Oceana asking for the same action for Northwest Atlantic loggerheads – the population that would affect East Coast fishermen.
NMFS and FWS announced their required 90-day findings on both petitions back in November 2007 and March 2008 respectively and concluded that the requested actions “may be warranted.” This led the services to form a Loggerhead Biological Review Team, which published a formal status review of loggerhead turtles in August 2009.
According to FWS Southeast Regional Director Cynthia Dohner, the status review was comprehensive and definitive.
She called it “an outstanding synthesis of the best available scientific information used to inform our joint determination and proposal.”
Nine different DPSs
The status review led NMFS and FWS to determine that the actions called for by the petitions “were warranted.” The next step was publishing a formal proposed rule in the Federal Register, which the agencies did on March 16.
The proposed rule would create nine different loggerhead turtle population segments around the world and list seven of them as endangered, including the two that most directly impact US fishermen. The breakdown is as follows:
Threatened: South Atlantic Ocean and Southwest Indian Ocean; and
Endangered: Northwest Atlantic Ocean and North Pacific Ocean, as well as South Pacific Ocean, Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean, North Indian Ocean, Northeast Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea.
As expected, the petitioners applauded NMFS and FWS for taking this step.
“The proposed rule marks a turning point in our ability to protect loggerhead sea turtles,” said CBD’s Andrea Treece. “By recognizing and preventing impacts to regional populations and their habitats, we’ll have a much better chance of putting these magnificent, prehistoric animals on a path to recovery instead of extinction.”
Oceana’s Dave Allison added, “Loggerhead sea turtles will struggle to survive if we don’t protect the areas where they nest, swim, and eat.”
Scallopers speak
The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which represents roughly 300 fulltime limited-access scallop vessels from Massachusetts to Virginia, has been monitoring the petition-related actions from the start and has provided information and comment at each opportunity.
When it became clear that NMFS and FWS intended to move forward with a proposed rule to uplist the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead population from threatened to endangered, the FSF spoke out once again.
The scallopers’ group pointed out that “nesting beach surveys cannot provide convincing evidence of impending danger of extinction necessary to support an uplisting,” especially since the surveys “do not capture recent conservation measures and assess only a fraction of the overall population – mature females.”
In a March 2 letter to NMFS Director Eric Schwaab, FSF attorneys David Frulla, Shaun Gehan, and Drew Minkiewicz of the Washington, DC firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP said the FSF had no position on the DPS issue.
However, the attorneys “strongly” urged NMFS to determine that the proposed change from threatened to endangered was “not warranted based on the 2009 status review.”
Rather than changing the turtles’ legal status under the ESA, the three attorneys said that what was “desperately needed” was:
An annual, in-water loggerhead turtle abundance survey over a substantial period of time;
An updated quantitative threat-assessment that takes into account the many changes industry has made to protect turtles; and
Research on the effectiveness of existing conservation measures and improvements to existing and new gear technologies.
Ongoing research
The Fisheries Survival Fund further noted that the scallop industry, through the FSF in partnership with the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NMFS itself, “has been undertaking cutting edge research on sea turtles.”
Together, industry and researchers have worked proactively on gear modifications, including turtle chains and new dredge designs, and have done extensive work on turtle behavior and population distribution. The ongoing work has included videotaping turtles underwater and tagging two juveniles with sophisticated satellite transponders.
“This research, coupled with observations of full-time fishermen, suggest the in-water loggerhead population is large and likely expanding … which should not be surprising given the confluence of dramatic decreases in overall fishing effort and increasing protective measures implemented since 1978 when loggerheads were first listed,” wrote Frulla, Gehan, and Minkiewicz.
Meanwhile, they said, “Turtle conservation efforts have mushroomed” in numerous fisheries. Examples range from turtle excluder devices for shrimpers to large time/area closures for the shrinking pelagic longline fleet to other fishery requirements in addition to those imposed on scallopers.
“The best available scientific and commercial data do not support a change in status of loggerhead turtles under the ESA to endangered,” the FSF team told Schwaab.
Industry anger
Sean McKeon, president of the North Carolina Fishermen’s Association, expressed outright anger at the NMFS/FWS proposal, recognizing that an endangered listing could have numerous consequences for gillnetters, longlines, and other Mid- and South Atlantic fishermen.
“This listing has the potential to cripple an already half-dead industry. With it, thousands of more jobs will come to an end,” he said.
Calling the proposal “an unconscionable act perpetrated by some of the most anti-commercial fishing groups in the world,” McKeon said that utilizing “agenda-driven science to harm others is truly beneath contempt,” especially “at a time of severe economic turmoil.”
“At some point, the American people had better wake up and understand that the way of life we enjoy in our country, once the envy of the world, is being decimated by radical environmental groups that are far more interested in making money than they are in solving real problems,” he said.
Janice M. Plante
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