The Blue Ocean Institute of Cold Spring Harbor, New York and its president, author and scientist Carl Safina, have filed a lawsuit seeking to force the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, to limit longline fishing in the Gulf of Mexico that is wiping out bluefin tuna populations.
The plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require that the Fisheries Service close longline fishing in bluefin spawning areas in the Gulf when the big tuna are spawning.
"For 25 years, people have been trying hard to get NMFS to turn this nosedive around. NMFS should do what the law requires before the bluefin tuna population crashes and burns," said Safina.
Federal laws such as the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, MSA, require the fisheries agency to take action to prevent bycatch kills such as those killing bluefin tuna populations. Under the MSA, the Fisheries Service officially identified bluefin tuna as "overfished" on September 30, 1997.
But the Service is allowing longline fishing in the Gulf of Mexico during peak bluefin spawning season. As a result, the lawsuit claims, bluefin tuna are illegally and needlessly decimated by longline vessels that are supposed to be targeting other species.
