Swordsmyth
06-19-2018, 08:11 PM
Marking yet another upsetting turn of events at the hands of the Trump administration, it was announced yesterday that the United States government canceled the proposed limits on the number of endangered whales, dolphins and sea turtles that can be injured or killed by gillnets on the West Coast.
The now defunct rule, which would have applied to less than 20 fishing vessels that use the monstrous fishing nets to catch swordfish in California and Oregon, would have halted gillnet fishing for up to two seasons if excess numbers of the nine groups of whales, sea turtles and or dolphins were trapped by the inconspicuous but dangerous net.
The measure which was originally introduced by the Pacific Fishery Management Council in 2015 would have applied to the endangered fin, humpback, and sperm whales, short-in pilot whales, and common bottlenose dolphins, as well as endangered leatherback turtles, loggerhead turtles, olive-ridley sea turtles and endangered green sea turtles.
Yet now, per Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the division has determined that the economic ramifications would have “a much more substantial impact on the fleet” than they had originally realized.
Further, he claimed, safety measures already enacted by the fishing industry, such as using pinging warning devices on the nets, have worked to “drastically” reduce the numbers of entangled whales and sea turtles.
More at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-administration-cancels-new-protection-for-endangered-whales-marine-mammals-sea-turtles/5644671
The now defunct rule, which would have applied to less than 20 fishing vessels that use the monstrous fishing nets to catch swordfish in California and Oregon, would have halted gillnet fishing for up to two seasons if excess numbers of the nine groups of whales, sea turtles and or dolphins were trapped by the inconspicuous but dangerous net.
The measure which was originally introduced by the Pacific Fishery Management Council in 2015 would have applied to the endangered fin, humpback, and sperm whales, short-in pilot whales, and common bottlenose dolphins, as well as endangered leatherback turtles, loggerhead turtles, olive-ridley sea turtles and endangered green sea turtles.
Yet now, per Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the division has determined that the economic ramifications would have “a much more substantial impact on the fleet” than they had originally realized.
Further, he claimed, safety measures already enacted by the fishing industry, such as using pinging warning devices on the nets, have worked to “drastically” reduce the numbers of entangled whales and sea turtles.
More at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-administration-cancels-new-protection-for-endangered-whales-marine-mammals-sea-turtles/5644671