Endangered turtles saved from relaxed controls

Fewer rare sea turtles will die on swordfish longlines in Hawaii under an agreement announced Feb. 7 between environmental groups and the government that settles a suit challenging the feds' plans to dramatically increase the number of turtles that could be killed.

The Turtle Island Restoration Network, Center for Biological Diversity, and KAHEA sued the National Marine Fisheries Service for allowing 46 imperiled Pacific loggerhead turtles to be hooked last year; the new court-ordered settlement caps the number at 17 per year. Meanwhile the Fisheries Service is weighing whether loggerheads need more protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Conservation groups represented by Earthjustice filed a federal lawsuit challenging a 2009 rule allowing the swordfish fleet to catch nearly three times as many loggerhead sea turtles as previously permitted. This settlement freezes the number at the previous cap of 17 while the government conducts additional environmental studies and decides whether or not to classify the loggerhead as endangered, rather than its current, less-protective status of threatened.

For leatherback turtles, the bycatch limit remains at 16 per year. In 2010, eight Pacific leatherbacks and seven loggerheads were caught in the longline fishery, according to the Fisheries Service.

"Pacific loggerhead sea turtles are nearly extinct, so this bycatch rollback helps right a serious wrong," said Teri Shore, program director at Turtle Island Restoration Network. "We can't allow these rare sea turtles to disappear for a plate of swordfish. It's tragic that it took a lawsuit to correct this fishery problem." Click here to read more.