Open for public comment until November 2004.
The latest recovery plan from NOAA Fisheries highlights the need to reduce right whale deaths in commercial fishing operations. The plan was prepared under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and provides a much-needed update to the previous plan prepared in 1991. The remaining 300 whales in the population decimated by historical whaling are now threatened primarily by entanglement in fishing gear and by ship strikes. Recommendations include modifying fishing gear, reducing overlap between fishing operations and the whales, and leadership by a multi-stakeholder Take Reduction Team.
The deadline for public comment on the draft recovery plan is November 1,
2004.
> Recovery plan draft (PDF format)
> NMFS Press Release - Aug 31, 2004 (PDF format)
> Submit public comments to Narw.Comments@noaa.gov
U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services Bycatch Strategy
In March 2003, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) released a plan to reduce bycatch "through fishing gear improvements, standardized reporting and education & outreach." The plan is based on its 1998 report, Managing the Nation’s Bycatch, which contains the agency’s national bycatch goal, "to implement conservation and management measures for living marine resources that will minimize, to the extent practicable, bycatch and the mortality of bycatch that cannot be avoided."
The plan sets a July 2003 date for submission of "regional report cards" that will document progress toward the national bycatch goal and recommend ways to improve progress.
> Download the NMFS strategy paper (PDF format)
> U.S. NMFS Press release (PDF format)
The major statutes that compel the NMFS to address the bycatch problem are the Magnussen-Stevens Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (see below) and the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act
The 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) requires the government to monitor the "incidental taking" (including bycatch) and "incidental mortality" of species and to protect species against any impacts that are "more than negligible." The MMPA was most recently reauthorized in 1994.
> U.S. MMPA Web site
U.S. Take Reduction Teams
The 1994 Amendments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act directed the NMFS to establish take reduction teams (TRTs) composed of fishermen, scientists, conservationists, and state and federal officials for the purpose of negotiating take reduction plans for particular regions or species.
Five original TRTs were formed in 1996. The NMFS Take Reduction Team Web site has information on all TRTs, past and present, which may cause some confusion for newcomers. The Mid-Atlantic TRT and the Mid-Atlantic Harbor Porpoise TRT are now one and the same. The Atlantic Offshore Cetacean team was disbanded by NMFS in 2001. A Bottlenose Dolphin TRT formed in 2001. See also the NMFS Take Reduction Team FAQs.
The immediate goal of the take reduction plans is to reduce bycatch within six months of implementation to levels that permit species to reach or maintain an "optimum sustainable population." The long-term goal is to reduce, within five years of implementation, the incidental serious injury and mortality of marine mammals from commercial fishing operations to insignificant levels approaching a zero.
Three of the plans formed by TRTs have their own websites:
> Atlantic Large Whale take reduction plan
> Harbor porpoise take reduction plan
> Bottlenose dolphin take reduction plan
Canadian North Atlantic Right Whale Recovery Plan
This plan highlights reducing the number of entanglements in fishing gear as an important strategy for Right Whale recovery. "Strategy B" within the plan recommends a reporting system, disentanglement network, and educational program along with other initiatives.
Since the plan was developed in 2000, significant steps have been taken in
the North Atlantic. In August 2003, a cooperative agreement to share
research, expertise and rescue equipment in the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of
Maine was reached between the US-based Center for Coastal Studies and
Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
> View recovery plan: HTML format | PDF format
> Fisheries and Oceans Canada press release, August 2003
