It's simply about fairness — for both fishermen and marine life: If U.S. anglers are required to meet certain standards on how they fish for such highly sought-after seafood like tuna and swordfish, so should the international interests that export their catches onto American dinner plates.
And it appears the National Marine Fisheries Service is taking the first steps to ensure just that. The agency is drafting rules requiring other nations that import fish into the U.S to reduce the number of incidents in which their fishing fleets cause death or serious injury to protected marine animals like dolphins and sea turtles to levels comparable to that required of U.S. fishermen, as mandated by the Marine Mammal Protection Act passed in 1972 and amended in 2007.
Believe it or not, the MMPA actually requires seafood-import nations to prove that their fishing practices do not harm or kill marine mammals, and mandates that the U.S. ban those imports that don't qualify. But, according to the Turtle Island Restoration Network dozens of nations shipping wild-caught seafood like tuna and swordfish into our market haven't proven they satisfy those requirements, and the U.S. has been letting them off the hook.
Hopefully, the new NMFS rules will mean the government is getting serious about putting an end to that leniency.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: South Florida Sun Sentinel.
