Nice inflammatory rhetoric, however you fail to provide any substantial or substantiated truth. 
The truth is, the NMFS observers actually saw a total of 18 actual turtle takes and many of them were on shark vessels, not reef fish vessels.  The shark fishery has since been closed, except for a very limited number of "research permits" with 100% observer coverage.  The data from the Shark Observer Program taken on trips with a combined target of reef fish and shark does not state whether the turtle takes observed were on shark sets or reef fish sets and is therefore very unreliable.  Also, 7 of the observed 18 takes came from sets of this nature, sets all made on ONE anomalous trip, leaving a more reliable observation of 11 takes over the 18 months studied.  When the figures you quote as if they are true were publicized, the data for 2008 wasn't in yet.  It is now in.  Have you looked at it?  Of course not.  It further diminishes your already fatally flawed arguments as it documents far less turtle interactions with the fishery than the flawed numbers you sieze on and hold up high as gospel.
The further truth is, while you continue to harp on the diminishing number of turtles nesting on Florida beaches, you blindly ignore the real reasons for that decline and attempt to blame it on a fishery that, even if it killed all the turtles you would like to claim it does, still does not account for that huge anomolous drop over a one year period.  The actual nesting numbers fluctuate and do so for many reasons while the longline fishery in the Gulf is responsible for the loss of perhaps 1% of those missing females.  You don't care about that and simply use the rhetoric to try to inflame public opinion wihout bothering to actually attempt to inform the public.
The rest of the truth is simply that your agenda, like that of the litigation machines of the extreme ecological groups, is to shut down a fishery over factors you don't fully understand because you have convinced yourself it is destructive and should be shut down.  While worrying about the phantom threat, you choose to ignore the very real financial and social consequences of the action you so ignorantly cry out for.
Read some of the real numbers and data that were presented to National Marine Fisheries Service by way of the Gulf Council, numbers and truth you choose to ignore in order to disingenuously further your agenda.  Try getting the full story before you jump off the cliff like a lemming and attempt to take as many unsuspecting but well intentioned people with you as you can muster.
These present a much different picture, one that unfortunately doesn't jibe with your agenda.
http://southernoffshorefishing.org/papers/Kenching...
http://southernoffshorefishing.org/papers/Kenching...
http://southernoffshorefishing.org/papers/Sobin-tu...
and finally, since you seem to prefer brief summaries...
http://southernoffshorefishing.org/papers/Kenching...
 
 

Whether they fish with lines, dredges, nets or pots, commercial fisheries accidentally catch sea turtles when they work in areas where these species are found.  Each year thousands of sea turtles are captured, injured or killed by fisheries in U.S. waters and by U.S. fisheries operating on the high seas. 
 
Sea turtles are listed under the Endangered Species Act because their populations have been reduced to the point where their future survival is in question. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is responsible for regulating U.S. fisheries and making sure sea turtles are not driven to extinction. 
 
Through observer programs, NMFS (or the Fisheries Service) determines how many turtles are caught by individual fisheries and reduces their impact as necessary.  With information collected by observers placed randomly on fishing boats, and reports from fishermen's logbooks about when and where fishing occurred, the Fisheries Service is able to estimate the number of turtles captured each year.  These estimates are not straight extrapolations and a great deal of time and effort is put into making these estimates (If observers are carried 1% of the time and 18 turtles are observed captured, the estimated annual capture CANNOT simply be extrapolated to 1800). Unfortunately, it is the rule rather than the exception that sea turtle interactions are underestimated.  The shrimp trawl fishery, scallop dredges, swordfish longline fishery and monkfish gill net fishery are examples where sea turtle capture and mortality were significantly underestimated, to the detriment of these species. As a result of these underestimates, fisheries have not been properly regulated and tens of thousands of sea turtles have died needlessly in U.S. fisheries over the years.   
 
Industry representatives for the bottom longline fishery and other fisheries acknowledge commercial fishermen are not always honest about the number of turtles with which they interact. If they reported this information in their logbooks as they are required to do, the Fisheries Service would know exactly when and where sea turtles are being caught and how many are being captured.  The needs of commercial fishermen and turtles could then be accommodated.  
 
The commercial fishing industry’s litany is always the same: "we don't catch turtles" becomes "we don't catch many turtles" becomes "we don't kill the turtles we catch" becomes "we don't like killing the turtles we catch." 
 
Like farmers, commercial fishermen provide food for all of us. They invest in their boats as farmers invest in tractors, but unlike farmers, commercial fishermen rely on public resources.  They do not own the oceans --every one of us is a stakeholder.  These marine ecosystems must be managed for all stakeholders and that includes restrictions on the capture of sea turtles.
 
Over 90% of all loggerhead nesting in the United States occurs in Florida. Loggerhead turtle nesting in Florida, despite an aggressive land-based conservation effort, is in steep decline.  Loggerhead nesting has declined 41% in the last decade, and notwithstanding the slight increase last year, nesting in Florida is almost at an all time low since record keeping began in 1989! It has long been suspected that the decline was due to fishery related impacts far from the nesting beach.
 

Very well said.  Thanks Marydele and Gary.  Marydele until I saw your name on the release I hadn’t realized that you’d been hired by the CCC.  They are lucky and so are you.  I hope to be working with you guys again on turtle sea turtle stories.

Best,

Ted

Sea turtles have been around since the age of the dinosaurs. But their days may be numbered unless Americans find the will to save them

The Future of Sea Turtles

By Ted Williams

The people who knew what they were doing wouldn't arrive for another 14 hours. So I stepped out of my chilled room at Tiara by the Sea, the funky motel in Melbourne, Florida (where the great sea turtle researcher and conservationist Archie Carr used to stay), and plunged into the steamy black night of July 26, 2005.

At least I knew enough to wear dark clothes and move slowly along the dry part of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, the 20.5-mile stretch of beach (if you count private inholdings) between Melbourne and Wabasso. I headed north, staying 50 feet above the white surf line. The glow from the phalanx of low, oceanfront houses hung over the beach like swamp mist, barely staining the sand.

I crossed a turtle track about every 20 feet, some fresh, some days old, some on top of each other, all resembling snowmobile spoor. The flippers of the loggerheads left alternating impressions, like the divots a kayaker cuts on a quiet lake surface with a double-bladed paddle. The rarer greens, whose nesting season was just getting under way, left parallel prints like those cut by a sculler.

I didn't see my first turtle for an hour—a green well over 300 pounds at the edge of the grass, kicking sand eight feet into the air. I sat and watched her until she'd buried her eggs. And when she hauled back toward the Atlantic she almost ran me over, showering my head and shoulders with sand and brushing my leg with her left flipper.

As the air cleared and the Milky Way lit the sea, I saw or imagined dark forms in the breakers. And then, before I could stop and crouch, I almost tripped over a loggerhead. She turned and retreated, aborting her nesting attempt as well as my outing, and leaving me dispirited and wondering if this qualified as a “take” under the Endangered Species Act.

The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, designated by Congress in 1989, is one of the stunning successes of the Endangered Species Act and the National Wildlife Refuge System. It is far and away the most important sea turtle nesting area in the United States and one of the two most important in the world. Greens, which have a biennial nesting cycle, construct something like 2,800 nests here in a high year and 200 in a low year. Corresponding figures for the whole state are 8,000 and 500. Leatherbacks—the largest turtle on earth (up to 2,000 pounds) and the most grievously endangered of all sea turtles—nest on the refuge. A quarter of all loggerhead reproduction in Florida occurs within refuge boundaries. Loggerheads were doing okay here until about six years ago, when they started a steep decline. In 2004 loggerhead nests reached a 20-year low of 8,000, down from 20,000 in 2000. But 2005 was a better year—11,085 nests, while greens (3,640 nests) and leatherbacks (68 nests) had record seasons.

Because Florida's beaches sustain 90 percent of the nation's sea turtle nesting, it's imperative that the state have especially enlightened policies for beach management and coastal development. Instead it has the most backward in the nation. For example, it is one of the few states that still permit extensive shoreline “armoring” with cement and metal seawalls. Seawalls do little to protect human dwellings, which shouldn't be built on the beachfront any more than they should be built on a river's floodplain. And seawalls deflect wave energy seaward, thereby eroding sand. Instead of a beach, sea turtles find gravel and bedrock that's inundated at high tide. In the unlikely event that a turtle keeps moving inland, she hits her head on the seawall. In Florida you can even build seawalls for land speculation—that is, you may lawfully use them in an attempt to protect undeveloped land.

Seawalls encourage development, which, in turn, brings more seawalls. And seawalls give home buyers a false sense of security. Florida's beachfront dwellings, allegedly protected by seawalls, are forever being destroyed by storms. In many cases owners are able to collect taxpayer-provided state and federal insurance, then rebuild.

Sarasota County, on Florida's west coast, provides a vignette of what's happening statewide. About a third of the county's 35-mile oceanfront has been armored with seawalls, and more are going up. On Casey Key, where houses built in the path of the advancing sea are being washed away, residents have recently obtained a permit to construct a 600-foot-long cement-and-aluminum seawall. And in Manasota Key—with the highest density of turtle nests on the Gulf Coast—beachfront residents are pushing for, and doubtless will get, a 2,400-foot seawall. Retreat is a word anathema to Florida bureaucrats and the $200 million-a-year Florida seawall industry. But when you're squaring off against a storm-prone sea—particularly one swelling with ice-cap meltwater from global warming—retreat is the only sane course.

Floridians have a legal right to laterally traverse the sandy beaches of the state. But by removing beaches, seawalls usurp that right. When state and county bureaucrats allow a community to build a seawall, they are sacrificing a public beach for the express benefit of private property owners and developers.

Once the beach is gone the only option is “beach renourishment”—a euphemism for making a fake beach. Usually the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers attends to this by using huge dredges to strip-mine sand from the ocean floor (along with juvenile turtles and entire benthic communities, including crustaceans, mollusks, worms, sponges, corals, and sea grasses). The resulting turbidity can last for months, clogging the delicate gills of filter feeders and starving sight feeders such as pelicans, terns, gulls, gannets, loons, cormorants, sea ducks, and all manner of predatory fish. A billion dollars in federal, state, and municipal funds has been spent in Florida for fake beaches, and 90 percent of these fake beaches have washed away within five years.

In the process of sucking up offshore sand, the Corps smothers coral reefs, critical habitat for juvenile sea turtles of five species, all of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. Then, when adult turtles make landfall, the alien sand may be too coarse for them to dig through or so fine that it falls back into their egg chambers as fast as they dig. The habitat of shorebirds is destroyed. Invertebrates are smothered. Maybe the beach ecosystem recovers; maybe it doesn't. It's as if you dumped five feet of dry, gritty dirt on your front yard. Something will grow there eventually, but not your lawn.

My guides arrived at noon the following day—David Godfrey, Gary Appelson, and Renée Zenaida, all of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, the world's oldest sea turtle research and protection outfit. Godfrey, the CCC's director, drove us to a typical seawall, tucked up against the refuge's southern boundary, in Wabasso. Seventeen oceanfront cottages supposedly protected by the wall had been torn up in 2004 by hurricanes Frances and Jeanne; of these, eight had been totally destroyed. The 1,800-foot seawall had broken in half and caved in. Most of the beach—prime turtle nesting habitat—was gone. Instead of protecting the cottages, the wall had destroyed most of the beach in front of it and severely damaged 200 yards of beach to the south. “Over there was Wabasso Park,” said Godfrey, pointing to a gravel-lined gully on our right. “That's where the public bathrooms used to be. Gone. And the people who buy these lots are going to come back and build something bigger and feel like they're safe because of the [repaired] wall.” Godfrey related a confrontation he'd had with one of the homeowners when the wall was going up: “The guy came out on the beach and started grilling me: ‘Who are you? What do you want?' I told him we were concerned about sea turtle nesting and had differing opinions about how to deal with beach erosion. ‘Well, this is my house, and I'm gonna do what I need to protect it, and blah, blah, blah.' Well, that's how he ‘protected' his house.” Godfrey pointed to a gray floor—all that was left.

The new buildings that will go up will be subsidized by state and federal flood insurance. And now that the seawall has removed most of the sand, residents will demand perpetual beach renourishment. “This is just a tiny snapshot,” declared Appelson.

And Godfrey added: “Rather than allowing this monstrosity on the beach, the state should have bought these dinky little bungalows. Granted, I wouldn't want my home destroyed if it were on the beach, but the sea is here, and rather than protecting every one of these buildings, we ought to identify places where we can move back. If there's not a high-rise, we should be buying these people out.”

As a classic example of what not to do, the Wabasso seawall fiasco has proved a net benefit to sea turtles. Beachfront development interests had pushed a law through the Florida legislature in 1995 that allowed local governments to authorize seawalls sans state permitting in the event of “emergencies.” Construction had to start within 60 days of the emergency, and the seawall had to be “temporary.” Suddenly “emergency” seawalls were popping up all over the state. One of the first armoring projects under the new law was the Wabasso seawall in Indian River County. Construction began more than a year after the emergency, and there was nothing “temporary” about it (at least until the hurricanes ripped it apart). The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service looked the other way. So the CCC sued the county for illegal seawall authorization. It then asked the DEP to issue a statement that the project was illegal. The department demurred. The CCC asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a statement explaining that authorization of the wall resulted in a “take” of sea turtles and was therefore unlawful under the Endangered Species Act. The service demurred. However, the discovery process forced the state to admit that the wall was illegal.

Had it filed for an Endangered Species Act violation, the CCC might have gotten the county and the homeowners to provide mitigation for the wall through a habitat conservation plan, but the group saw an opportunity for a great deal more. It went after and obtained a settlement for a habitat conservation plan for the entire county that included a moratorium on all seawall construction pending Fish and Wildlife Service approval. The plan, approved in 2004, finally forced the service to admit that seawalls do indeed result in a take of sea turtles, and it requires the county to monitor turtle nesting along its beaches, sponsor sea turtle education programs, protect nests from such predators as skunks and raccoons, place a cap on the number of seawalls it authorizes, and enforce a strict coastal lighting code so that adult turtles aren't repelled and hatchlings don't become disoriented and move away from the sea.

From Wabasso we drove north to a beachfront cottage in Brevard County that had supposedly been made storm safe by tubes—portable, plastic seawalls that are filled with sand and that hold back the sea about as successfully as did King Canute. The county has a ban on seawalls, but the tubes' developers got around it with shrewdly applied political pressure and by putting on a medicine show in which they asserted that their device shouldn't count as a seawall and that it was the next best thing to Dr. Kickapoo's Elixir for Rheum, Ague, Blindness, and Insanity. The developers have even tried to push through legislation that changes the definition of “dunes” to include their tubes. The tubes I saw, erected inside the refuge and after the hurricanes of 2004 had blown out the cottage's walls, were also “protecting” a vacant lot (illegally, because the tubes are regulated differently than hard seawalls).

“The kindest thing I can say about these tubes is that they're experimental,” said Godfrey. “Engineers who have looked at this stuff say it's essentially worthless. We're laying out this experimental crap in the middle of the densest sea turtle-nesting beach in America to protect homes that are already destroyed. It's ridiculous. It makes me want to vomit when I see this. State, federal, local governments, and the Richard King Mellon Foundation spent over $100 million buying land for this refuge. There should be a mechanism for the state to evaluate a house like this and force it to be moved back.”

In 1986 the state developed a program called the Coastal Construction Control Line by which dwellings allowed within the impact area of 100-year storm events must be built “hurricane safe” and sited to protect the beach-dune system. Since then the state has presided over the building of all manner of allegedly “hurricane-safe” structures, many of them behind seawalls and tubes, but it has done little to enforce protection of the beach-dune system. The nonenforcement is a function of property values. A single lot—100 feet of beach frontage—in this part of Florida now sells for about $2 million; that's up from $100,000 just 10 years ago. Moreover, the lavish tax base funds schools, hospitals, police, and other services, addicting communities to unregulated coastal development.

When the allegedly hurricane-safe replacement for the ruined cottage goes in behind the tubes, it will set the new line for coastal construction, and state and federal taxpayers will again get to pay for flood insurance. “You've heard about all that swampland for sale in Florida?” Godfrey asked me. “Well, these ‘storm-proof' beaches are the new Florida swampland.”

These tubes are just one of countless quack cures with which beachfront residents and politicians are continually seduced. Another is the net groin—a four-foot-high porous fence, perpendicular to the beach, that extends 150 feet seaward from the mean high-water line and is anchored by steel posts driven into the sand. It's supposed to function like those rock jetties called “groins,” which build up the beach on one side and starve it on the other. Last July, a day before the Brevard County commissioners were to consider spending $592,595 to install net groins inside refuge boundaries and across from the Crystal Lakes subdivision, the newspaper Florida Today asked Godfrey to comment on the system's efficacy. “Let's forget about all the turtle impacts and pretend this thing works,” he told the reporter. “It's going to cause sand to build up on the north side and deplete sand on the south side. Is that success? We've all seen what that looks like at Sebastian Inlet. The people to the north are happy; the people to the south are furious and suing.” The next day no commissioner would second the motion to approve.

Turtles are adored by the public —so much so that Steven Spielberg's hugely successful ET, the extraterrestrial, was modeled after one. But whether or not Americans are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to save sea turtles from extinction is much in doubt. Still, I was heartened to see the way the locals had embraced sea turtles. Under special permits, citizens groups walk beaches nightly, identifying species, monitoring nesting activity, reporting strandings, documenting light-induced hatchling disorientation. There were sea turtle motifs everywhere I looked—on buildings, mailboxes, and signs. A tile mural of sea turtle hatchlings adorns the wall of the Publix supermarket in Melbourne. When my guides stopped there to buy red cellophane for our flashlight so the beam wouldn't spook the turtles, Appelson asked the girl at the counter if she had something smaller and less expensive than the big roll on the shelf. “No,” she answered, grabbing the roll and ripping it open. “See,” she said. “This one's damaged. You can have it. Go watch turtles.”

The reason the beaches of the Archie Carr refuge are so dark is because people dim their lights so as not to drive away adult turtles or draw hatchlings from the ocean and into harm's way—not much of a sacrifice, especially considering the energy it saves. But many people in Florida aren't willing to do even that. Hotel magnate Charles Hilton of Panama City Beach (no connection with the Hilton hotels) has been fighting Bay County's turtle-safe lighting ordinance. Hilton and his family own a Holiday Inn SunSpree, a Day's Inn, and a Ramada Inn. Because of the intense lighting around these hotels, they're the dominant features on the beach, and Hilton wants to keep it that way. The turtle eggs should be taken out of his way, he explained to the Bay County commissioners in writing: “It seems apparent that a [turtle egg] relocation program will be more effective than passing an extensive turtle lighting ordinance, and certainly the cost-benefit ratio will be better.”

The trouble with digging up and relocating turtle eggs is that you don't know where they all are and that lots of the ones you relocate don't hatch, as a result of being disturbed. On August 3, 2004, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued Hilton the following warning: “The emergence from the nest and crawl to the sea is one of the most critical periods of a turtle's life. Hatchlings that do not quickly make it to the sea become food for ghost crabs and birds or become dehydrated. . . . The courts determined that beachfront lighting causes take of sea turtles, and that local governments and other parties can be liable for that take.” The service has even offered to share the cost of retrofitting Hilton's lights. He refused. “Total disorientation” of hatchlings has been documented under Hilton's lights.

“Has there been any progress with Mr. Hilton and his people since you issued your warning?” I asked the Fish and Wildlife Service's Lorna Patrick.

“No,” she replied. “I've been trying to get them to work with us, and they are unwilling to do so.” When I asked her if her agency was going to prosecute for an Endangered Species Act violation, she said: “I don't make that decision; our law-enforcement people do.”

When I walked the refuge with my CCC guides, the beach seemed darker, the Milky Way brighter. One house, however, was ignoring the lighting ordinance with front-yard floodlights. “See,” said Appelson, “that guy doesn't care.” But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the lights died. The guy did care.

It wasn't 10 minutes before turtles started lumbering out of the sea. The first one emerged directly in front of us, and we dropped quickly to our knees. “She sees us,” said Godfrey. “She's gonna bail.” And with that the big loggerhead turned quickly and reentered the waves. Godfrey and Appleson weren't concerned. This happens all the time, they said. You want to do everything you can to avoid it, but sometimes you can't. “She'll try again, probably within an hour,” said Godfrey. So I was absolved. There had been no “take” the previous night.

After the seventh turtle, Appelson said, “I've never seen it this good.” But it was both good and bad. All the turtles I saw that night turned back when they hit the “FEMA berm.” Four months earlier, supposedly to protect beachfront houses from hurricanes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had constructed an artificial dune along the top of the beach. There was something about it the turtles didn't like, explained Godfrey. Maybe the sand is too soft for egg chambers. When I tried digging a hole in the berm the walls instantly collapsed. In 2005 the rate of “false crawls” on the refuge was 59 percent for loggerheads and 66 percent for greens. Before the berm the average had been 44 percent for loggerheads and 49 percent for greens.

If you are sitting or lying down and a sea turtle passes you within arm's length, it's okay to touch it provided you have clearly seen it turn around and head back to the sea. As my fingers brushed one, dinoflagellates on its black carapace left trails of phosphorescence.

I watched the turtles until I fell asleep, ancient, hard-wired reptiles as old as the dinosaurs, hitting this compromised beach—the best beach they have left—as relentlessly as the waves. They've been doing this for 200 million years. I had trouble imagining that it might stop in my lifetime.

-30-

What You Can Do

If you live on the beachfront from North Carolina to the Gulf Coast, don't impede sea turtle nesting with beach armament. Dim your outside lights and draw your curtains during nesting season (May 1 through October 31). For more information, call the Caribbean Conservation Corporation at 800-678-7853 or log on to www.cccturtle.org.

You write it nicely and no doubt feel you make a compelling case, but you still rely simply on inflammatory rhetoric and not truth.
You state that "Industry representatives for the bottom longline fishery and other fisheries acknowledge commercial fishermen are not always honest about the number of turtles with which they interact."
Which industry representatives would this be?  Can you quote the specific "industry representatives" that said this?  Can you quote the "dishonest numbers" that commercial fisherman are dishonest about and show that they are indeed "dishonest" or do you simply toss around lies and dishonest characterization?
You state that "If they reported this information in their logbooks as they are required to do, the Fisheries Service would know exactly when and where sea turtles are being caught and how many are being captured.".
What logbook am I supposed to be reporting this information in?  I have a logbook that I fill in at the end of every bottom longline trip as required by regulations, and there is no mention of sea turtles in it.  Yet you choose to characterize me as "dishonest" because supposedly I lie in this logbook that doesn't even exist?
You state that " It has long been suspected that the decline was due to fishery related impacts far from the nesting beach."
Who has long suspected this?  Can you provide some sort of study or figures to make this anything but more dishonest rhetoric?  Can you show a direct correlation between the advent of TEDs in the bottom trawl fishery and nesting figures?  Can you honestly believe that around 200 longline fishing vessels fishing the entire Eastern Gulf of Mexico from  20 Fathoms out to 100 fathoms have done more damage to turtle nesting on our once pristine beaches than rampant overdevelopment, overdevelopment that is at its worst in the same latitudes where the greatest number of turtle takes has been documented?  Do you really believe that all those turtles would have simply chosen to nest in the glow from high rise after high rise all the way down the beaches of most of the barrier islands if they had been able to escape the clutches of 200 boats willing to dishonestly kill and hide as many as it takes to make a buck?  Are you that naive?
Have you read the studies that show that far more turtles die each year from encounters with propellers of recreational boats than from any fishery?
Your arguments would be much more compelling were you to use honesty and truth to further them.  Instead you choose to use bad science, numbers you just made up, accusations of dishonesty and lying that you have no proof of (not to mention claims regarding log books that simply do not exist) and generally nothing more than a bunch of disingenuous rhetoric.  Fortunately for you, your targeted audience doesn't seem to demand any more than that.
 
 

So, Cappy, you’re arguing that industry reps are always honest.  Sure, and the moon’s made of green cheese.  I’ve met and interviewed dozens of industry reps who have looked me in the eyes and lied.  Your alleged non-interaction with sea turtles is supposed to be statistically meaningful?  Please explain how and why.  I have interviewed shrimp fishermen who sewed their TEDs shut.  You have it right that overdevelopment of beaches, sewalls, and beach “renoursihment” have done more to harm sea turtles than longlines.  And your point is…?  Cancer kills more people that AIDS.  Is it therefore your contention that we should ignore AIDS?  When loggerheads turn up dead and drowned on longlines (as they frequently do) what kind of “studies” do we need to prove that there’s a problem?  I recall when the shrimpers who didn’t like TEDs were advocating for turtle hatcheries.  Put-and-take turtle management.

Nice opening, Ted.  It is called a straw man and is a well known logical fallacy.  As I never said that "industry reps are always honest" it is easy to debunk that statement offhand with some silly reference to green cheese.

You then claim "dozens" of industy reps have "looked you in the eyes and lied".  Very dramatically stated but I don't believe you and you seem totally unable to provide any sort of citation for your statements.  For one thing, the Gulf of Mexico longline industry simple does not have "dozens of industry reps" let alone ones that have met with you to lie.

You then go on to my own "alleged non-interaction with sea turtles", something else I never said or implied.  I simply pointed out that the previous post alluded to log books not being correctly filled out when in fact those log books do not actually exist.  I am not asked at the end of a trip if I interacted with any sea turtles, I am asked how many of what kind of fish I caught and where and on what type of gear I caught it.  Period.  Perhaps if we had been being asked this for the last 20 years we would have a better idea of how many interactions there actually are than we have been able to gather from numbers extrapolated from a very small and fatally flawed set of actual data.

I simply asked for some real citations of the statements the post I was replying to had made, statements which I believe were not true but were made to handily bolster a shaky, at best, argument.

Then you attempt to say that my contention may be that we should ignore AIDS because cancer kills more people?  I neither said that nor believe anything so silly, it is simply more of your logical fallacy, which you use rather than attempting honest debate or discourse.  It is a patently stupid statement that doesn't even come close to characterizing my argument yet you make it in an attempt to debunk me and therefore my argument.

A better parallel might be that I believe that the number of people extolling the cause for breast cancer research, (even Major League Baseball has a "Pink Bat Day"), while completely ignoring the fact that other less "media friendly" cancers kill many more people every year than breast cancer does should rethink their priorities and perhaps work to further the cause of ALL cancer research rather than rallying people to stamp out a particular type of cancer that lends itself well to drumming up sympathetic response.  Somehow, a "brown bat day" to raise money for colorectal cancer research in all major league baseball parks just isn't quite as stirring, is it?

See if you can stick to debating my arguments or just ignore them, but don't attempt to make me look the fool by putting silly words that came from you not me into my writing.

It is simple...I don't believe the data, as gathered, is complete enough or accurate enough to warrant shutting down an entire industry.

See if you can address that simple statement using real data, not the numbers extrapolated and publicized by The Center for Biological Diversity while preparing yet one more of their many lawsuits against the government.

I believe that marshalling all the people to work to "save our turtles" by shutting down a relatively small fishery while ignoring the greater dangers to sea turtles such as overdevelopment, beach bulkheads, light pollution, and under-regulation of the recreational boating industry is irresponsible and token environmentalism.  Were you to be energetically addressing the situation with recreational boating injuring turtles more than any other single activity, your attacks on a healthy fishery would seem less like opportunistic pseudo-environmentalism and more like genuine concern.  However, you choose to completely ignore the recreational boating problem.  Is it because you have a personal or even vested interest in recreational boating?

It brings to mind the scene in Catch-22 where Yossarian tends to a soldier's minor injuries while telling him that he'll be okay and will be going home soon...and then rolls him over and his guts spill out of him from his real injuries.

If you want to really help the sea turtles you would be busily calling for a complete shut down of all exterior lighting along Florida Beaches as well as a ban on walking along those beaches after dark, during nesting season.  Instead, you ask people to kindly dim their lights and go out yourself for late night walks, chasing sea turtles off the beach.

Closing down the fishery is equitable to shutting off the power to those beachfront communities from dark to dusk during nesting season.  Raise a cry for the latter and I'll believe you have a genuine concern.

If you wanted to really help the sea turtles you would be calling for better regulation of operators of recreational vessels.  Better education for those who drive the boats that are injuring and killing far more loggerheads than any other single factor.  Restrictions on the operation of those boats in areas where sea turtles are known to nest and swim.  Research on how to better propel those boats through the water without the unfortunate killing machine that outboard motors have evolved into just being refined and sped up.

But you do none of that.  It is far easier to take up the cry to shut down those criminal lying fishermen.

Those lying dishonest fishermen I might point out whose lying dishonest representatives got together with Ocean Conservancy and Oceana and hammered out a compromise measure that the Gulf Council just approved two days ago which will keep some of the fishermen working some of the time while more and better data is gathered. 
http://southernoffshorefishingassociation.com/blog...
 

Cappy: You asked a rhetorical question: “You state that ‘Industry representatives for the bottom longline fishery and other fisheries acknowledge commercial fishermen are not always honest about the number of turtles with which they interact.’  Which industry representatives would this be?”  Either you are not familiar with the language or this is a statement of disbelief that there are indeed dishonest comm. fishermen, else why would you make it?  Did you expect CCC to list the liars by name?  Street addresses?  Phone numbers?  I did not claim that all the industry reps that have lied to me work only for Gulf longliners.  You go on to make this statement: “I have a logbook that I fill in at the end of every bottom longline trip as required by regulations, and there is no mention of sea turtles in it.”  Did you forgot what you wrote?  Or do you still maintain that this is not a statement of non-interaction with turtles?

You go on to write: “Then you attempt to say that my contention may be that we should ignore AIDS because cancer kills more people?  I neither said that nor believe anything so silly.”  But you use precisely this logic to suggest that we shouldn’t worry about longline mortality because it is not as great as mortality caused by beach manipulations and development.  You will now grant, will you not, that that line of reasoning is absurd?

No one is suggesting that the fishery be “shut down.”  The plaintiffs merely want to “suspend” it until the feds figure out how to prevent more turtles from being hurt or killed.  If, as you claim, they’re not being hurt or killed, that should be a very simple and quick task.

Finally, you have offered the inevitable rebuttal of all exploiters, land or sea: “I don't believe the data…”  That’s a dead end erected by dead brains that leaves no possibility for rational debate.

Cappy: Apparently the data was there.  Good for the feds:

Contacts:

Marydele Donnelly, Caribbean Conservation Corporation, (410) 750-1561 (office)

Emma Cheuse, Earthjustice, (202) 667-4500 (office) or (202) 841-7619 (cell)

Andrea Treece, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 436-9682 x 306 (office)

Emergency Action Implemented for Threatened and Endangered Sea Turtles

Six-month closure to determine appropriate ways to protect animals

Gainesville, FL – The National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) has ordered a 6-month emergency closure of the Bottom Longline fishery in the Gulf of Mexico to protect imperiled sea turtles from capture and death in the fishery.  During the closure, which will prohibit fishing in waters less than 50 fathoms (300 feet), NMFS will determine whether and how the fishery can operate while ensuring the survival of the turtles over the long term.

            NMFS is closing the fishery in shallow waters because its data indicate the fishery had captured more than 8 times the number of sea turtles authorized previously by NMFS in its 2005 biological opinion.  A Federal Register notice that will be published on Friday, May 1^st, explains that further bottom longline fishing could jeopardize the existence of loggerhead sea turtles “unless action is taken to reduce the fishery’s impact on this threatened species.” 

            The Caribbean Conservation Corporation, Earthjustice, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Sea Turtle Restoration Project and other groups had sued NMFS in mid-April to seek protection for these imperiled animals and requested the emergency closure implemented today by NMFS. 

            “Today is a great victory for those who believe in protecting sea turtles from unnecessary harm and illegal capture to ensure their continued survival in the wild,” said Marydele Donnelly, International Policy Director with Caribbean Conservation Corporation. “We commend NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco for setting a new course for NMFS that relies on sound science to manage our oceans and protect marine wildlife for the future of all Americans.”

            “After unconscionable delays and what could be the deaths of thousands of sea turtles, it’s great to know that protections are on the way,” said Donnelly. “We’ve witnessed an alarming decline in loggerhead turtle nesting in Florida of over 40% during the last decade; without a doubt, fisheries are the culprit in these declines.  This closure begins to address one of the greatest threats to sea turtles in the United States and improves this species’ chance at survival.”

Details on Emergency Closure:

• Following the conservation organizations’ lawsuit filed April 15 and renewed action by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to support an emergency closure in mid-April, NMFS is closing the bottom longline fishery for up to 180 days. 
• The closure will become effective May 16, 2009 (15 days after publication in the Federal Register) to provide two weeks for fishing trips that are now occurring to receive notice and reduce disruption on the fishery for already initiated trips. 
• During this closure, NMFS states that it plans to complete a new biological opinion that will evaluate the impact of the fishery and insure that it is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the sea turtle species captured in it.  It will also consider measures that could be used to reduce turtle capture and killing by the fishery, to allow it to reopen at a future date.
• NMFS also states that it is working with the Gulf Council to implement “long-term measures to reduce bycatch of sea turtles in the eastern Gulf of Mexico” which “are needed to provide protection for loggerhead sea turtles” in particular due to the long-term decline in their nesting population in Florida.  Such long-term measures for consideration on a permanent basis would be implemented after a period of public notice during which all interested citizens would have full opportunity to comment. 
• NMFS provides notice that it may renew the closure for a longer period of time if necessary for NMFS to fulfill its legal obligations under the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson Stevens Act to prevent further harm to threatened and endangered sea turtles. 

Background

NMFS took this action in part because in 2005, NMFS had determined that the Gulf of Mexico fishery could capture up to 114 sea turtles, including 85 loggerheads, during a three-year period without violating the Endangered Species Act. But in recent months the agency released new information that vessels in the Gulf caught nearly 1,000 turtles between July 2006 and December 2008 – more than eight times the number allowed.  In February 2009, NMFS requested public comment regarding an emergency closure to protect sea turtles in view of the high numbers of unexpected turtle captures but still had not acted as of April 15, 2009 when conservation groups filed suit to compel protective action by the agency.  The National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is responsible for ensuring that bottom longline fishing does not pose a threat to sea turtle populations.

Bottom longline fishing is a fishing process that uses hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks along miles of lines laid behind fishing vessels and stretching down to the reef and Gulf floor. The fishing hooks target species like grouper, tilefish, and sharks, but often catch other fish or wildlife, including endangered and threatened sea turtles. Injuries from these hooks affect a sea turtle’s ability to feed, swim, avoid predators, and reproduce. Many times the turtles drown or, unable to recover from the extreme physiological stress, die soon after being released from the longlines.  A portion of fishing vessels within the Reef Fish Fishery have used bottom longline fishing gear off the west Florida shelf within the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which NMFS has described as “an important sea turtle foraging habitat.”   

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David Godfrey

Executive Director

Caribbean Conservation Corporation

4424 NW 13th Street, Suite B-11, Gainesville, FL 32609

(352) 373-6441        Website:  www.cccturtle.org

Email: david@cccturtle.org

Skype Address: cccturtle

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