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Protect Pacific Sea Turtles - Halt the Hawaii Swordfish Expansion

DENOUNCE THE U.S. DECISION TO INCREASE SEA TURTLE DEATHS IN HAWAII SWORDFISH FISHERY
Tell President Obama and NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco to reverse their decision to remove all limits on deadly longline hooks that snare sea turtles. Send them a letter via email or better yet, write a hand-written letter by snail mail and copy your Congressional representatives.

Claiming that sea turtles can survive hooking in the mouth, fins and flippers on longlines set by the Hawaii-based swordfish fleet, the U. S. government has issued weak new fishing regulations taking affect in January 2010 that will:
- Triple the number of Pacific loggerhead sea turtle caught on longlines every year
- Remove all limits on the number of hooks to 4 million or more per year
- Allow near-extinct Pacific leatherback sea turtles to continue to be caught and killed in the fishery. Read more about the history of this wasteful, harmful fishery.

“I’m shocked that President Obama who is from Hawaii will allow more sea turtles to die in this wasteful fishery,” said Teri Shore, Program Director for Turtle Island Restoration Network, a non-profit that has been demanding better protections for sea turtles from industrial fisheries. “Every Pacific leatherback and loggerhead that we lose to a longline is a direct threat to the species’ survival and recovery from the brink of extinction.”

“The US government is going to allow even more sea turtles to be injured and killed to provide US consumers with swordfish, a product that is tainted with high levels of mercury. This is what we experienced and learned to expect from the Bush Administration, but we ‘hoped’ for something better from the Obama administration. It appears the fishing industry is still callsing the shots when it comes to protecting oceans and human health,” said Todd Steiner, biologist and Executive Director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.

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Subject:

Your Letter:

Dear President Obama and NOAA Chief Lubchenco,

Please reverse your decision and  immediately halt the expansion of the deadly Hawaii longline fishery for swordfish that will allow more sea turtles to be accidentally captured or killed.

The weakening of protections for sea turtles in the fishery contradicts findings from your own scientists at National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this year that Pacific loggerheads are at risk of extinction due in large part to capture in longline fisheries.

This action also conflicts with your own efforts to develop and craft a new National Ocean Policy that makes protecting our oceans and fisheries an immediate priority.

More than 50 percent of what’s caught in the Hawaii longline fishery is not swordfish, but sea turtles, humpback whales, false killer whales, seabirds and vulnerable fish species including sharks and big eye and yellow fin tuna.

A federal court previously closed the fishery down for four years due to excessive capture of sea turtles, but reopened in 2004 with requirements to use experimental circle hook technology and special bait that the government claimed would drastically reduce the injury and mortality of sea turtles.

However, even with the modified gear, the fishery was closed down early in March 2006. In an unprecedented but legally required action, the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council requested the Secretary of Commerce to shut down the swordfish fishery before it exceeded its allowable "take" of critically endangered loggerhead sea turtles.

Fewer than 5,000 nesting western Pacific leatherbacks remain and only 1,500 North Pacific loggerheads still nest. Only about one in a thousand sea turtle hatchlings survive to the age of 30 years or more to return to their nesting beaches. With declines of more than 90 percent for these leatherbacks and 80 percent decline of the loggerheads, there is no scientific justification to increase the death toll for these species as they swim across the ocean.

Please stop this terrible decision before the swordfish fleet begins to set millions of more longline hooks in the paths of sea turtles in January.

President Barack Obama

Phone:(202) 456-1111

Fax:(202) 456-2461

Undersecretary Jane Lubchenco

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Better yet, send a typed or handwritten letter to:

President Obama, The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
HCHB, Room 5810
1401 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20233

Californians - Help Pass the Leatherback Bill in the Senate!

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