Take Action: Fisheries Protections at Risk Midwater TrawlerDon’t let NOAA weaken crucial reforms for industrial fishing. Send your comment now! New England’s waters are home to some of our nation’s most important marine species. Humpback whales and bluefin tuna, puffins and terns, cod and striped bass all spend part of their lives in these cold waters, and they rely on an abundant supply of Atlantic herring for food. But these fish and their predators are threatened by a fleet of industrial trawlers that catch hundreds of millions of pounds of Atlantic herring every year. These trawlers also incidentally kill and waste vast amounts of other marine life, including several other depleted species of river herring and shad. Over the past few years, we have asked for your help in bringing greater accountability and oversight to this industrial fishing fleet. And last year, thanks in part to tens of thousands of comments from people like you, regional fishery managers voted in favor of several important reforms, including 100 percent at-sea catch monitoring by certified observers and limits on indiscriminate dumping of uninspected catch at sea. But our work is not done. Final approval and implementation of the new management system now rests with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries. We’re concerned that officials there may reject elements of the new program that are essential to achieving improvements in the management of industrial herring fishing. Don’t let years of work, thousands of public comments, and widespread support from fishermen and fishery managers go to waste. Take action now! Write to NOAA’s Northeast administrator, John Bullard, and let him know how you feel about this important issue. advocacy.pewenvironment.org/ea-action/action?utm_campaign=PEG%20-%20EONE%20-%20Amendment%205&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&ea.client.id=1793&ea.campaign.id=21619&elq=aab78ff4c2bb40599bd03109d8062e6f&elqCampaignId=82
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:40:57 +0000