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Environmentalists sue to protect sea turtles off US coasts

Posted by: Maven on May 29, 2009 at 8:15 am

From the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

Environmentalists want a federal judge to force fisheries managers to take action on lawsuits seeking stronger protections for sea turtles. Three groups — Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project — filed a complaint today in San Francisco federal court, saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service have violated the Endangered Species Act by not responding within 12 months to lawsuits asking for the protections.

Lawyers for the groups said the initial three petitions were filed in 2007, and that the delay is hurting the waning populations of leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles off the U.S. coasts.

“At the same time, the fisheries service is dawdling in its legal response,” said Santi Roberts, the California project manager of Oceana. “They are pushing to open up fisheries off the West Coast that they know will catch and kill sea turtles.”

Two of the petitions ask that populations of loggerheads in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans be upgraded from a threatened species to the more legally protected endangered classification.

May 29, 2009 · Filed Under Oceans & Beaches

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