Ruling on Longline Fishing Aids Turtles

Cornelia Dean, The New York Times 19 Aug 09;

When a federal panel that regulates fishing in the Gulf of Mexico voted last week to limit the use of longlines to catch grouper because the lines can snag and drown threatened loggerhead sea turtles, no one was completely satisfied with the decision.

But some people close to the issue say the dissatisfaction is a positive sign, an indicator of the growing efforts among fishermen, conservationists and regulators to seek consensus and abandon the rancor that for decades has marked their interactions.

“Nobody got exactly what they wanted,” said Roy Crabtree, Southeast regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the panel, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. “But everyone felt we had come up with a reasonable compromise.”

Longlines are miles of metal cable strung with thousands of baited hooks, which fishermen deploy along the ocean bottom, including on coral reefs and rocky “hardbottoms” where red and black grouper forage. Loggerhead sea turtles forage there, too, and if they are snagged on the hooks, they may drown before the lines are hauled back to the surface.

The council, which regulates fishing in federal waters from Texas to the west coast of Florida, voted to close some areas to longlining, and only about half of the approximately 125 boats now using the gear will be allowed to continue. Fishermen will be allowed to catch grouper using vertical lines, which are dropped overboard.

In general, experts say, fishermen bring in bigger catches using longline gear, and some add that it is somewhat easier to use at sea.

Glen Brooks, president of the Gulf Fishermen’s Association and a participant in the rule making, said the process was “stressful.” But, Mr. Brooks said, “years ago the commercial fishermen did not talk to the environmentalists, we did not talk to the recreational fishermen and the council members kind of looked down on us. Now we have a pretty good relationship with the environmental groups, the recreational sectors, and we have a pretty good rapport with the council members.”

Dave Allison, who manages turtle conservation efforts for Oceana, an environmental group that also participated in the rule making, called the new ruling “probably the best that the sea turtles could have hoped for from an organization called the fishery management council.” But “it’s a good start,” Mr. Allison said. According to Dr. Crabtree, recent research suggests that the lines snag far more loggerhead sea turtles than had been thought, perhaps 600 a year, and that most of them die. Conservationists say longline gear also damages corals and other important habitat on the sea bottom, threatening both the turtles and the fish.

Dr. Crabtree said that turtles sometimes snagged on vertical line hooks, too, but that because those lines were usually hauled up relatively quickly few of them died as a result. Loggerhead turtles can stay underwater for up to an hour.

The Gulf of Mexico supplies much of the grouper served on American tables. Dr. Crabtree said it was too soon to know if the rule change would significantly affect prices for the fish.

Adult loggerheads typically have shells about three feet long — “bigger than a wheelbarrow but smaller than a Volkswagen,” as Mr. Allison put it. Though females may lay 100 eggs or more on the region’s sandy beaches, scientists estimate that fewer than one in 1,000 of the tiny turtles who hatch and crawl into the waves live to age 30 or 35, when they are ready to reproduce. NOAA scientists are studying whether still more restrictions may be needed to protect loggerhead sea turtles, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Though he is among those who think more must be done to safeguard the turtles, Mr. Allison praised council members, who, he said, “showed a great deal of courage” in pushing for fishing restrictions sure to be unpopular in some quarters.

In a way, Mr. Brooks said the same thing.

The ruling “has its pros and it’s got its cons,” he said. “We did not get everything we wanted; the environmental groups, the agency, they did not get everything they wanted. But we all walked away with something.”