The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a federal district court settlement limiting the number of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles that can be caught by Hawaii’s longline swordfish fishery.
While the appeal was pending, the Fisheries Service in September 2011 changed the loggerheads’ designation to ‘endangered’. In January 2012 the agency also issued a new ‘biological opinion’ under the consent decree. That document proposes to increase the number of endangered loggerhead sea turtles the longliners can catch from 17 to 34. It also increases the limit for catching endangered leatherback sea turtles from 16 to 26. Notably, in 2011 the fishery was forced to close after it caught its limit of leatherbacks.
