Longliners on hook in California ruling
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this week ruled that the federal National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act by authorizing longline fishing off California without determining its effect on endangered sea turtles and birds.
The California-based longline industry includes about 40 fishing vessels formerly based in Hawai'i. Many boats moved from Hawai'i to California after November 1999 when U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued an injunction that led to the shutting down of the swordfish longline industry here and placed restrictions on tuna fishing to protect sea turtles.
The move greatly increased the number of longline vessels off Southern California. The amount of swordfish landed at San Pedro, Calif., increased from 1.5 million pounds in 1999 to 2.6 million pounds in 2000, according to court documents.
The increased fishing concerned environmental groups because the vessels drop monofilament lines up to 30 miles long with thousands of hooks. In addition to the food fish, the lines snag endangered leatherback turtles, green sea turtles, marine mammals, sea birds and sharks, the groups said.
In May 2001, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Center for Biological Diversity in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The lawsuit alleged that the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is in charge of managing the nation's fisheries, violated the Endangered Species Act by granting fishing permits without studying how that would affect sea turtles and birds.
A U.S. district judge in California ruled against the environmental groups, which then appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel reversed the lower court's decision and remanded the action back to the district court. The judges ruled that the Endangered Species Act requires the fisheries service to conduct the impact analysis.
Officials at the Honolulu office of the fisheries service could not be reached for comment. But representatives of environmental groups were pleased with the decision.
"Rather than comply with the Hawaiian injunction, the longliners chose to move their operations to California, where state and federal regulators turned a blind eye to their violations of the (Endangered Species Act)," said Brendan Cummings, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Peter Fugazzotto, Turtle Island Restoration Network spokesman, said commercial fishing has caused the leatherback turtle population to be on the verge of extinction.
"If we don't modify our fishing activities, the ancient leatherback, which out-survived the dinosaurs, may be the first of many species to disappear, including the many over-fished species of fish on which we depend on for food," he said.
Since 1999, about a third of Hawai'i's 110-boat longline fleet left the state because most boats did not have the equipment aboard to convert to efficient tuna fishing, longline officials have said.
Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8025.
Correction: Leatherback turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The name of the turtles was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
