Joint effort nets endangered shellfish

Reuters

TORONTO (Reuters) – An international sting operation has netted 27 tonnes of an endangered shellfish, after DNA tests proved that imports labeled whelk meat actually came from the queen conch, authorities said on Wednesday.

The equivalent of seven fully loaded semi-trailers of queen conch meat, an endangered species that is widely used in Caribbean and Asian cooking, was found in shipments to several North American cities in an 18-month operation that began in March 2006, U.S. and Canadian officials said.

“This is way off the radar as far as anything we’ve seen in the past,” Sheldon Jordan, director of wildlife enforcement for the Quebec region at Environment Canada, told Reuters.

“(Wildlife trade) is third behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking as far as illegal activities worldwide, so this has an important economic impact in addition to the biological impact that it has by taking these species out of the ecosystems.”

The smugglers, based as far apart as Miami, Florida and Vancouver, British Columbia, would ship the mislabeled meat into Canada, and then redistribute it to the United States through Buffalo, New York.

The meat, also known as pink conch, is legally fished and consumed on a limited basis in some Caribbean countries, and its shells are sold as tourist souvenirs.

But overfishing in the 1970s and 1980s has left the queen conch endangered, prompting a near-total U.S. embargo on the meat from 2003 to 2006.

Jordan said three people had been charged with smuggling, along with two companies. Under Canadian law, the individuals could face up to five years in jail or a C$300,000 fine, or both, if they are convicted. U.S. penalties are up to five years imprisonment and fines, in this case, up to $1 million.

“The two interceptions that we had in Montreal in November of last year and Halifax in December basically cut the dragon off at the head,” he said of the operation.

Habitat Protection Sought for World’s Largest Turtle, Endangered Leatherback, Off California and Oregon Coast

Ewire SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, Sep. 29 -/E-Wire/– A coalition of environmental organizations formally petitioned the federal government on September 26th to designate critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act for the Pacific leatherback sea turtle, a species whose frequent and deadly encounters with longline and gillnet fishing gear meant to catch swordfish have put it on a steep slide toward extinction.

The last members of an ancient lineage that has outlived the dinosaurs, leatherbacks are ocean giants that grow to the size of a small car, dive half a mile deep, and migrate across the entire Pacific Ocean basin from their nesting grounds in New Guinea and Indonesia to feed in the rich waters off California and Oregon. Leatherbacks swim more than 6,000 miles within a single year – the largest geographic range of any living marine reptile and one of the longest known migrations for any species in the world.

Leatherbacks in the Pacific Ocean have declined by more than 90 percent over the past three decades, primarily as a result of drowning in industrial longline and gillnet fisheries aiming to catch swordfish, sharks, and tunas. Marine debris and loss of nesting beaches due to sea-level rise also threaten the species, predicted to go extinct within the next few decades.

“Leatherback sea turtles survived the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, but they are unlikely to survive our appetite for swordfish,” said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If leatherbacks are to survive the coming decades, we must turn the waters off California and Oregon into a true sanctuary for these imperiled creatures. Designating critical habitat is a vital step toward that end.”

The petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana, and Turtle Island Restoration Network asks the National Marine Fisheries Service to designate as critical habitat an area of ocean spanning Big Sur, California to central Oregon. The proposed area, comprising roughly 200,000 square miles, is a food-rich upwelling region favored by many marine species, including the leatherback.

Areas designated as critical habitat must be managed for species recovery recent studies have shown that species with critical habitat are twice as likely to have improving population trends as species without it.

“Sea turtles have been able to survive for millions of years with only their shells for protection. To survive the challenges of today, however, they will need more than that – they need help from all of us,” said Ben Enticknap of Oceana. “We know when and where leatherbacks are along our coastlines, and we know what the threats are to them while they are here. Designating this important area as critical habitat will ensure that no activities occur along our shores that would push these ancient and extraordinary animals further toward extinction.”

The proposed critical habitat area is currently designated as the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area by the National Marine Fisheries Service. It is closed to drift-gillnet fishing for swordfish during a three-month period during the summer and fall when leatherbacks gather here to feed on jellyfish. But the Fisheries Service has recently proposed to re-open the area to drift-gillnet and pelagic longline fishing.

“If we don’t want one of the ocean’s most inspiring species to go extinct on our watch, permanent habitat protection for the giant leatherback must be put into place. Right now, we’re continually having to fight another proposal to allow destructive fishing technologies inside the already designated Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area,” said Todd Steiner, biologist and executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.

The Endangered Species Act requires the National Marine Fisheries Service to respond to the petition within 90 days. Contact Info:

Brendan Cummings

Center for Biological Diversity

Tel : 760-366-2232 x 304

Ben Enticknap

Oceana

Tel : 503-235-0278

Karen Steele

Turtle Island Restoration Network

Tel : 415-686-0869 Website : the Center for Biological Diversity

	/SOURCE:	the Center for Biological Diversity
	-0-	09-29-2007
	/CONTACT:	Brendan Cummings Center for Biological Diversity Tel : 760-366-2232 x 304 Ben Enticknap Oceana Tel : 503-235-0278 Karen Steele Turtle Island Restoration Network Tel : 415-686-0869
	/WEB SITE:	http://www.biologicaldiversity.org

Call for urgent action after fishing vessel catches 12 critically endangered Chatham albatrosses

Wildlife Extra

September 2007. The killing of 34 albatrosses by a fishing boat east of New Zealand demonstrates the need for urgent action to stop albatross by-catch in fisheries. A long-line vessel caught 12 critically endangered Chatham albatrosses as well as 22 Salvin’s albatrosses.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says the high level of seabird by-catch by this vessel was totally unacceptable. ‘Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has said in response to this incident that he is considering regulating to ensure all fishing vessels adopt best practice to avoid seabird by-catch, and that he is instructing his officials to identify what constitutes best practice’.

‘While Forest & Bird supports the minister’s actions, we already know what best practice is. We already know that mitigation measures – including weighting fishing lines, setting lines only at night, not discharging fish waste, and using bird-scaring lines – reduce seabird by-catch deaths by up to 90%. We call on the minister to act urgently to implement mandatory mitigation measures to prevent further disasters. Many other countries already require mandatory by-catch mitigation measures. Although many vessels complied with a voluntarily code of practice, the exceptions could result in slaughter of seabirds that put critically endangered species further at risk of extinction, Kevin Hackwell says.

‘The minister refers to this as an ‘accident’ but without mandatory requirements to use mitigation measures, this was an accident waiting to happen. The minister must act urgently to ensure no further ‘accidents’ occur.’

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Chatham Island albatross facts

• The Chatham Island albatross (Thalassarche eremite, aka Chatham Island mollymawk) nests only on a single rocky island, The Pyramid, off the Chatham Islands, where just 5000 pairs are breeding. It is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN (World Conservation Union).
• Chatham Island albatrosses are threatened by fishing by-catch and habitat degradation.
• The recent by-catch deaths are likely to contribute to population decline of Chatham Island albatross in the next few years – its critical status means it is highly vulnerable to the risk of irreversible population decline and extinction.

 

Declining Indus levels threaten dolphins

Daily Times

KARACHI: The decreasing flow of water in the River Indus has not only changed the river’s shape but the number of various fish species, especially the rare Blind Indus Dolphin, has declined dramatically, Abdul Karim Gabol, communication officer of World Wildlife Federation (WWF) Sindh told Daily Times on Wednesday.

“Though the exact number of the fish could not be collected, according to an estimate of the Sindh Wildlife Department in 1989, the number of Blind Indus Dolphin between the Sukkur barrage and the Arabian Sea was about 3,500. That has gone down to a mere 1,100 in 2006,” he said.

Another reason for the declining number of this species could be that the river had been reduced to small ditches in most areas near Kotri Barrage, which has caused a complete end to many species of small fish used as Blind Dolphin feed. “There is a pocket between Sukkur Barrage and Guddu Barrage where 70 percent of the Blind Indus Dolphins present in the River Indus were found. Many organisations have initiated preservation efforts in this area,” he said.

Mohammad Arab Mallah, president of the Sindh Tarraqi Pasand Mallah Tanzeem and an expert on downstream Kotri matters, agreed that the alarming level to which the Blind Indus Dolphin was in danger was because of the continuous water shortage below Kotri Barrage. He added that the irrigation system and barrages on River Indus had proved major obstacles in the free flow of Blind Dolphins.

“My organization contacted several organizations for help. It is regrettable that our government is doing nothing to preserve these rare fish,” Mallah lamented. He said that professional fishing at the River Indus and the use of prohibited nets had also caused this decline. “People hunt the dolphins for their oil or kill them for meat because they believe that the fat of the dolphins is a treatment for some kinds of pain. That is not true,” he explained. Mallah said that sometimes, these dolphins accidentally get caught in fishermen’s nets and die. “A couple of months back, a dolphin slipped from River Indus onto Rice Canal near Larkana and was shot dead by some villagers who were unaware of the importance of this beautiful fish.”

This rare fish is locally known by various names such as Indus Susu, because of its whistle-like sound, Blind River Dolphin and the Side-Swimming Dolphin. The Indus River Dolphin has a long beak that thickens toward the tip, revealing its large teeth. The forehead is steep and the fish has poor eyesight as the blowhole is on the left of the head, above its tiny eye. They are gray-brown in color, sometimes with a pinkish belly, and measure between 1.5 meters to 2.5 meters in length, weighing a maximum of 90 kg. Their breeding takes place every alternate year in shallow water and the reproductive season is from March to May.