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(301) 713-2370 (O) 9/6/94
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An increase in sea turtle strandings along the north Texas coast has prompted the National Marine Fisheries Service to boost its enforcement efforts in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery and to offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone violating federal regulations that protect sea turtles, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said today.
Both the U.S. Coast Guard and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are contributing to the activity, which Andrew Kemmerer, director of the fisheries service's Southeast regional office in St. Petersburg, Fla., calls "the most concentrated enforcement effort in the history of sea turtle conservation."
"I don't know how we can make our intentions any clearer," Kemmerer said. "This agency is not going to stand idly by while threatened or endangered sea turtles wash up dead on Texas beaches."
Shrimp fishermen from time to time capture turtles in their nets, where the turtles can drown. Turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, are designed to shunt turtles safely out of shrimp nets.
The turtle saving function of a TED can be defeated if it is improperly installed, and in some instances, TEDs have been found intentionally sewn shut. According to fisheries service enforcement officials, some fishermen sew their TEDs shut because they believe TEDs cause them to lose shrimp. Studies have repeatedly shown, however, that a properly installed and operated TED will not release shrimp.
Weekly turtle strandings, which had risen to 55 the week the shrimp season opened July 7, fell to the single digits the second and third week of August. But during the week ending Aug. 27, more than 20 turtles washed up dead on the Texas coast, most between Freeport and Sabine Pass. Since Aug. 28, more than a dozen additional sea turtles have stranded, most of them in the same area.
The fisheries service says its beefed-up enforcement effort with the Coast Guard and Texas Parks and Wildlife began shortly after the opening of the shrimp season and accounted for the initial fall in turtle strandings. Enforcement, however, returned to what Kemmerer called a "normal complement" in mid-August.
"It seems to us there is a direct relationship between how tough we get with enforcement and how low the number of stranded turtles is," said Kemmerer.
Kemmerer said the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fully supports the fisheries service's enforcement efforts and has made three of its boats and several of its agents available. In addition, Kemmerer said, the department and the fisheries service will begin immediately to develop an enforcement agreement and will cooperate in developing a longer-term solution to the stranding problem.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which has already made a substantial commitment of boats, aircraft and personnel from its stations in Sabine, Freeport, Galveston, Houston and Corpus Christi, said it was prepared to augment fisheries service efforts with its own special criminal investigative agents, if needed.
Kemmerer said the agency was bringing in extra enforcement agents from as far away as Alaska and that the effort would continue throughout September, and longer if necessary.
The shrimping season began July 7, following the opening of the so-called Texas closure, an annual two-month suspension of shrimping in Texas waters so that young shrimp can migrate from coastal inlets to deeper water and grow to market size.
During the height of the shrimp season, as many as 4,000 shrimp vessels may be operating in the western Gulf of Mexico.
All five species of sea turtles found off the U.S. coast are listed as threatened or endangered and are protected by federal law.
Shrimp fishermen who fail to take the required steps to prevent turtles from being caught or drowned in their nets run the risk of civil fines up to $12,000 and having their catch seized under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Fisheries service enforcement officials said that anyone who furnishes information leading to an arrest, conviction, or forfeiture of property of anyone who violates federal law protecting marine turtles would be eligible for the reward of up to $10,000.