Protect Pacific Sea Turtles from Swordfish Hooks

Dear President Obama and NOAA Chief Lubchenco,

Please immediately halt the expansion of the deadly Hawaii longline fishery for swordfish that will allow more sea turtles to be accidentally captured or killed.

The weakening of protections for sea turtles in the fishery contradicts findings from your own scientists at National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this year that Pacific loggerheads are at risk of extinction due in large part to capture in longline fisheries. They are now listed as endangered.

More than 50 percent of what’s caught in the Hawaii longline fishery is not swordfish, but sea turtles, humpback whales, false killer whales, seabirds and vulnerable fish species including sharks and big eye and yellow fin tuna.

A federal court previously closed the fishery down for four years due to excessive capture of sea turtles, but reopened in 2004 with requirements to use experimental circle hook technology and special bait that the government claimed would drastically reduce the injury and mortality of sea turtles.

However, even with the modified gear, the fishery was closed down early in March 2006 and 2011.

Fewer than 5,000 nesting western Pacific leatherbacks remain and only 1,500 North Pacific loggerheads still nest. With declines of more than 90 percent for these leatherbacks and 80 percent decline of the loggerheads, there is no scientific justification to increase the death toll for these species as they swim across the ocean.

Even worse, half the U.S. population - women and children - are warned by the FDA to never eat swordfish due to high mercury levels. That's why Americans are eating less swordfish than ever before. We don't need it and don't want more.

President Obama, please reverse this terrible action by your federal fisheries agency before the swordfish fleet, with its millions more longline hooks, makes an irreversible impact on sea turtles in USA waters offshore of your birthplace in Hawaii.