Longline fishers
awaiting new rulesExisting standards will remain
in place for the time being
Hawaii-based longline fishers will operate under existing rules, a federal judge has ordered, while the National Marine Fisheries Service develops new regulations by April 1.
The judge's ruling last week ended more than a month of uncertainty after the court threw out the rules.
In late August, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the fisheries service had not followed proper procedures in establishing its current restrictions, which include prohibiting longlining for swordfish and limiting the area where longlining for tuna can be done during April and May.
But the ruling, which came in a lawsuit filed by the Hawaii Longline Association, struck down not only the restrictions on Hawaii-based longliners, but also the protections for them if they accidentally hooked an endangered turtle.
Under fisheries service rules that have been in place almost four years, Hawaii-based longliners can accidentally kill, as a byproduct of fishing, up to seven green sea turtles, three leatherback turtles, eight loggerhead turtles and 24 Olive Ridley turtles a year without punishment for breaking the Endangered Species Act, said Paul Achitoff, an attorney for EarthJustice.
In a rare show of unity, the fisheries service, EarthJustice and the Hawaii Longline Association all asked the court not to leave the fishers dangling with no rules at all. The joint request was granted Wednesday, said Achitoff.
EarthJustice represented the Ocean Conservancy, Turtle Island Network and the Center for Biological Diversity in an earlier lawsuit that got the rules put into effect in the first place.
"To me, everybody's kind of happy with it for now," said Scott Barrows, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association. "Now the National Marine Fisheries Service can keep doing its job and we can keep fishing."
