NEWS FLASH! WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! Dear S.T.O.P Supporter, We have great news to share with you. After more than five years of hard work and stakeholder input, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, finalized a new fishery management plan amendment that will significantly reduce the waste of depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna from surface longline fishing gear. This industry kills thousands of sea turtles each year as bycatch along with over 80 other marine animals. For decades, the U.S. surface longline fishery has incidentally caught and killed large numbers of bluefin tuna annually. These fish are mostly thrown back, usually dead. NOAA Fisheries’ new amendment will provide bluefin tuna with valuable protections in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean that will help end this waste and encourage more selective fishing. Your voice was instrumental in ushering in this banner achievement for bluefin. Now we need your help once more. We would like you to submit a letter to NOAA Fisheries encouraging them to promulgate implementing regulations for Final Amendment 7 to ensure that they take action to put these new measures in place by the end of 2014. Attached is a sample letterhead letter and a summary of the Final Amendment to help you put together your comment letter. Direction for submitting comments are included below. Please let me know by if you will submit a comment letter to NOAA Fisheries on behalf of S.T.O.P. This short public comment period ends on October 6, 2014. Thanks again for all of your help over the years! Now we just need to bring this one in for a landing. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS BY MID-NIGHT TONIGHT! Link to View Final Amendment 7: https://drive.google/file/d/0B-e5IdO5JMpNbEhlWFRlbTZEeDA/view?usp=sharing Link to our Sample Letter: https://docs.google/document/d/1eTsxBiOmr9B2nerkAGC6MbMo5xDWnHo_J3c9Bi9Hod4/edit?usp=sharing Directions for Submitting Comments to NOAA Fisheries on Final Amendment 7: All comments submitted to the agency should reference “NOAA–NMFS–2013–0101” and be addressed to Alan Risenhoover. To comment on the rulemaking please visit: regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=NOAA-NMFS-2013-0101-2234 .
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 19:12:53 +0000
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