Federal Judge Upends Plan To Expand Gillnet Fishing In Middle Of Endangered Right Whale Habitat
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In an emphatic repudiation that he said was "not a close call," U.S. District Judge James Boasberg yesterday declared the federal agency violated two federal laws when it gave a green light to gill net fishing gear use in "large swaths" of the marine mammal's habitat. "There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men," Boasberg wrote, quoting from Melville's 1851 novel "Moby Dick."
An Obama administration appointee at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Boasberg agreed with the Conservation Law Foundation that NOAA Fisheries violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Act with its gill net fishing call. He imposed an injunction restoring a prior ban. "The public interest in preventing the extinction of the whale, which has been listed as endangered since the passage of the ESA, is beyond dispute," Boasberg wrote.
Fewer than 500 North Atlantic right whales are now estimated to be alive. In recent years, the primary cause of death and serious injury for the species has been entanglement in fishing gear. From 2010-16, entanglements accounted for 85% of right whale deaths (Greenwire, Oct. 5, 2018).
In addition to causing outright death, scientists say entanglements require right whales to expend so much energy to recover that it delays how frequently otherwise reproductively viable females give birth.
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https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/10/29/stories/1061408813
