March 30, 2017 Mr. Herb Pollard, Chair Pacific Fishery Management
Agenda Item B.1.b Supplemental Public Comment 3 Full Version Electronic Only April 2017 March 30, 2017 Mr. Herb Pollard, Chair Pacific Fishery Management Council 7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101 Portland, OR 97220-1384 Mr. Barry Thom West Coast Regional Administrator National Marine Fisheries Service West Coast Region 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Bldg. 1 Seattle, WA 98115-0070 RE: Agenda Item B.1: Open Comment Period – Opposition to Pelagic Longlines off the U.S. West Coast Dear Mr. Pollard, Mr. Thom, and Council Members: You have the shared privilege and responsibility to protect the ocean’s most majestic wildlife. That responsibility includes ensuring ocean wildlife can safely swim Pacific Ocean waters without being killed in commercial fishing gear. We, the undersigned 24,494 residents of the United States (including 6,106 residents of California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington), urge you to prevent the authorization of pelagic longline fishing gear off the U.S. Pacific Coast. Use of this gear would lead to the entanglement and death of sea turtles, dolphins, whales, sea birds, sharks and many other important ocean species. Pelagic longlines used to catch swordfish, which can reach 60 miles in length and trail thousands of baited hooks, will inevitably ensnare and drown many other unsuspecting marine animals. Such a U.S. West Coast-based pelagic longline fishery, whether deep-set or shallow-set, has no place among the diversity of ocean life of the Northeast Pacific, particularly species already endangered with extinction. Pacific leatherback sea turtles, for example, migrate 6,000 miles from their nesting beaches to feed in the productive waters off the U.S.
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