Whales, Dolphins Unprotected from Fishers:<\/b> The Government Accountability Office has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service has failed to take protective measures for 14 marine mammal populations that, by law, it is required to protect. Among them are Hawai`i false killer whales, the Central North Pacific stock of humpback whales, and the Hawai`i stocks of sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins.<\/p>\n
\tNothing has been done for the false killer whale due to a lack of funding, NMFS told the GAO. \u201cAccording to the most recently available information, the false killer whale is the only marine mammal for which incidental take by commercial fisheries is known to be above its maximum removal level that is not covered by a take-reduction team,\u201d the GAO found. Lack of funds was also given as the reason for failing to establish a take-reduction team for the Central North Pacific stock of humpback whales; \u201chowever, because its population size is increasing,\u201d the GAO wrote, \u201cNMFS officials consider the stock to be a lower priority for establishing a team than stocks with declining populations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Hawai`i stock of sperm whales is also not a high priority for NMFS officials, who told NMFS that interactions of the longline fishery with sperm whales account for little or no incidental take.<\/p>\n
\tThe GAO reports instances \u201cwhere fishery-related mortality estimates were missing important information. For example, NMFS scientists identified spinner and bottlenose dolphins in Hawai`i as non-strategic\u201d \u2013 the level of harm from the fishery was not enough to warrant action by NMFS \u2013 \u201cbut raised concerns about these decisions because the estimates of fishery-related mortality for the stocks were likely to be incomplete\u2026. While the agency has observer program data showing that incidental take from a longline fishery was below the maximum removal level, it did not have observer programs in gillnet fisheries that were also likely to incidentally take the stocks, and therefore might have increased the fishery-related mortality estimate if these fisheries had been observed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn 2003, attorneys from the Honolulu office of Earthjustice sued NMFS, on behalf of Hui Malama I Kohola, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Turtle Island Restoration Network, seeking to force the agency to reclassify the Hawai`i longline fishery from Category III (having \u201ca remote likelihood of or no known incidental mortality and serious injury of marine mammals\u201d) to Category I (a fishery having \u201cfrequent incidental mortality and serious injury of marine mammals), based on threats to false killer whales. A year later, NMFS changed the Hawai`i longline fishery\u2019s classification to Category I. When that occurred, NMFS should have convened a take-reduction team and prepared a take-reduction plan for Hawai`i\u2019s false killer whales. But that has not yet happened.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cFor years, NMFS has illegally ignored its own data, which show that the Hawai`i-based longline fleet is injuring and killing false killer whales at over twice the level the population can sustain,\u201d said Earthjustice attorney David Henkin. \u201cHawai`i\u2019s marine mammals are paying with their lives for NMFS\u2019 refusal to comply with the law.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis new GAO report confirms NMFS never took seriously its responsibility to reduce the killing of marine mammals caused by industrial fishing gear. Earthjustice and our clients are currently investigating ways to compel NMFS to heed Congress\u2019s command to protect Hawai`i\u2019s false killer whales and other marine mammals from needless death and injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAccording to the Cascadia Research Collective, the population of false killer whales in the insular waters of Hawai`i is distinct from that of the offshore population \u2013 and is in serious decline. The organization now estimates the insular population numbers around 120, one-fourth of the estimated population just 20 years ago. For more, see [url=http:\/\/www.cascadiaresearch.org\/robin\/falsekillerwhale.htm]http:\/\/www.cascadiaresearch.org\/robin\/falsekillerwhale.htm[\/url]<\/p>\n
\tThe GAO report is available online: [url=http:\/\/www.gao.gov\/new.items\/d0978.pdf]http:\/\/www.gao.gov\/new.items\/d0978.pdf[\/url]<\/p>\n
— Patricia Tummons<\/p>\n
Volume 18, Number 8 February 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whales, Dolphins Unprotected from Fishers: The Government Accountability Office has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service has failed to take protective measures for 14 marine mammal populations that, by law, it is required to protect. Among them are Hawai`i … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-february-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}