Demand immediate protections for whales off the West Coast

Ms. Lowman, Council Members, Pacific Fishery Management Council; Ms. Sobeck and Mr. Stelle, National Marine Fisheries Service:

I urge you to implement the strongest possible hard caps for the 2015/2016 fishing season and beyond for endangered fin, humpback, and sperm whales, short-fin pilot whales, and common bottlenose dolphins; as well as for endangered leatherback, loggerhead, olive ridley, and green sea turtles. Please adopt the California Department of Fish and Wildlife preferred alternative for hard caps and adopt strong performance objectives for other fish and marine mammals. These wild ocean animals are at risk of entanglement, injury, and death in the California-based swordfish drift gillnet fishery. What is more, it is not acceptable to allow this fishery to continue to kill, without consequence, marine life like dolphins, sea lions, large numbers of sharks and other valuable fish in the pursuit of swordfish. The bycatch of these species must be capped, controlled and ultimately put to a stop. To effectively implement hard caps, we ask you to require 100% observer coverage and/or electronic monitoring. Despite current regulations on gear types and allowable fishing areas, the bycatch in drift gillnets is simply deplorable.

Mile-long drift gillnets, meant for swordfish and thresher sharks, form dangerous underwater walls of death that drown or critically injure an appalling number of other animals. These nets entangle and kill roughly one hundred protected marine mammals per year, continue to take endangered sea turtles and sperm whales, and kill unacceptably high numbers of non-target species such as blue sharks, bigeye thresher sharks, striped marlin, ocean sunfish, and others.

Ultimately, to maintain the health and biodiversity of the California Current marine ecosystem, drift gillnets should be prohibited and replaced with cleaner fishing methods. Last year, the Council committed to transition away from drift gillnets to cleaner gear types, and recently California legislators, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, called on you to support a transition plan that includes a definitive end to drift gillnets off the West Coast. Deep-set buoy gear is showing strong promise as an alternative fishing gear type that effectively targets swordfish with substantially less bycatch than drift gillnets or pelagic longlines. Hard caps should be an interim measure to provide critical marine life with additional safeguards while a full transition plan to clean gear types is developed and implemented.

We strongly oppose any expansion of drift gillnets into the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area or reintroduction of pelagic longlines off the U.S. West Coast through Exempted Fishing Permits or otherwise. The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) should be moving to transition away from drift gillnets and should not consider pelagic longlines as an acceptable transition gear. This gear type has been banned off California for 30 years for a reason; it carries similar bycatch concerns as drift gillnets. If the Council and NMFS have the goal of a sustainable West Coast swordfish fishery, efforts should focus taking a step forward by promoting clean gears, not taking steps backward to fishing gears known to be dirty.

The Council and the NMFS have the responsibility to protect marine life. Please safeguard our ocean wildlife; establish a transition plan that phases out and prohibits drift gillnets, with meaningful hard caps and 100 percent monitoring designed to reduce and control bycatch in this fishery as an interim measure.

Sincerly,