Congress Urges Action on Mexico Turtle Deaths

December 16, 2013

US Congress calling for halt to thousands of endangered sea turtle deaths in Baja Mexico fishery 

Rep. Jared Huffman (CA-2nd) and 12 House members urged Obama officials to pressure Mexico to immediately end the needless drownings of Pacific loggerhead sea turtles in a Baja California fishery -- a global hot spot for turtle bycatch.

The Congressional letter seeks to pressure the Obama administration to step up its efforts to end the excess sea turtle bycatch in Mexico. The U.S. requires its fishermen to stop netting and hooking loggerheads, but Mexico refuses to do the same. Instead Mexico is denying that fishing nets are killing the sea turtles. 

The bycatch rate of loggerheads in Baja Mexico gillnets is among the highest in the world — and it is jeopardizing their continued survival. Last summer a horrific 600 percent increase in dead sea turtles was observed in Gulf of Ulloa along Baja's Pacific coast. A shocking 705 loggerheads washed up dead on one stretch of shoreline in just two months. Sea turtle scientists estimate over 2,000 loggerheads were killed last year in gillnets alone off of Baja's coast. In January, the United States officially “identified” Mexico for its unsustainable loggerhead bycatch under the U.S. Protected Living Marine Resources statute, which requires nations to be formally identified, certified and sanctioned for failing to adopt bycatch measures comparable to U.S. protections. 

If Mexico doesn't act to stop the turtle bycatch, it faces a U.S. trade embargo. 

In May, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Center for Biological Diversity filed a legal petition with the Obama administration seeking a ban on Mexican seafood or other imports to the U.S. until Mexico reduces its sea turtle mortality.

Congress members who signed the letter about bycatch of Baja Mexico sea turtles were: 

Jared Huffman, CA - 2nd District, San Rafael 
Lois Capps, CA- 24th, Santa Barbara 
Anna Eshoo, CA - 18th, Palo Alto, 
Sam Farr, CA- 20th, Salinas 
Michael Honda, CA -17th. San Jose 
Barbara Lee, CA- 13th, Alameda 
Zoe Lofgren, CA - 19th, San Jose 
Alan Lowenthal, CA - 47th, Long Beach 
George Miller, CA - 11th, Richmond 
Mike Thompson, CA - 5th, Napa 
Rick Larsen, WA- 2nd, Bellingham, 
Madeline Bordallo, Guam 
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Northern Mariana Islands


Source: By Teri Shores