Petition for Rulemaking to Reduce Sea Turtle Bycatch in the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Bottom Longline Fishery

Filed on regulations.gov — full text not in the inline record.

Dear Mr. Hood: Please accept these comments on behalf of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Florida Wildlife Federation, Gulf Restoration Network, and Turtle Island Restoration Network. The excessive take of sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery violates the law and requires immediate action by the National Marine Fisheries Service ("NMFS"). NMFS has allowed this fishery to operate without any meaningful oversight or valid take authority under the Endangered Species Act ("ESA") for over two and a half years. As a result, the fishery has captured, killed, or injured nearly 10 times the number of loggerhead sea turtles that it was allowed to take by NMFS's 2005 Biological Opinion. NMFS's inexplicable hesitation to carry out its non-discretionary legal obligations with respect to this species is all the more egregious in light of the dramatic decline in Florida loggerhead sea turtle nesting over the past decade and the agency's own admission that incidental capture in commercial fisheries is a primary threat to the species. As detailed below, NMFS must immediately suspend the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery in order to come into compliance with the ESA. Our organizations and others concerned about the plight of loggerhead sea turtles have urged the agency to address the problems in the longline fishery since we first learned of them in October 2008. These efforts began with conversations and outreach to the agency and the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council on the belief that NMFS's own data regarding the unsustainable death and injury of sea turtles would leave the agency with no choice but to act quickly to come into compliance with the ESA. With no action forthcoming, however, our organizations sent on January 14, 2009, a letter providing 60-day notice of intent to sue regarding the violations of the ESA in the bottom longline fishery. In its February 25, 2009, Federal Register notice, NMFS characterized this letter as a petition for rulemaking and sought comments through March 27, 2009. Despite our organizations' ongoing efforts, and those of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, see 74 Fed. Reg. at 8495, to end the injury and death of threatened and endangered sea turtles in the bottom longline fishery, NMFS still has not acted. Rather, the agency has allowed the risk to sea turtles to increase to an unacceptable level in its decision to allow the shallow water grouper fishery to reopen on March 15, 2009. Participants in this fishery have been quite vocal of their intention to fish quickly and with as much effort as possible in anticipation of a fishery closure later this year, yet our understanding is that they are still subject to very low observer coverage. The risk of a largely unobserved derby fishery is significant, and compounded by NMFS's take data from 2007 and 2008 showing a substantial risk of turtle capture during April and extending through the summer months. We have held back on legal action up to this point due to the agency's repeated assertions that it is working quickly to address the situation, but the sea turtles caught and injured in the ongoing fishery receive no protection from unsupported promises. The agency can no longer delay action to protect the threatened and endangered sea turtles for which they are responsible under the ESA. I.Background: Dramatic Exceedance of the Fishery's Allotted Sea Turtle Take The history of NMFS's behavior with respect to the bottom longline fishery in the Gulf of Mexico over the past three years reveals a startling and illegal inattention to the fate of sea turtles that the agency is legally bound to protect under the ESA. On February 15, 2005, NMFS issued a Biological Opinion on the continued authorization of the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery as managed under the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan. The Biological Opinion concluded that the fishery, incl…