Mosbacher’s About-Face Cheers Environmentalists : Shrimpers Ordered to Start Using Sea Turtle Excluder

In a major victory for environmentalists, Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher on Tuesday did an about-face from his earlier position and said that shrimpers must use devices that allow sea turtles to escape from fishing nets.

The order marked the end of a long and bitter battle for environmentalists, who earlier had accused Mosbacher of looking after the interests of shrimpers to the exclusion of those of an endangered species.

“This is a final decision on our part,” Brian Gorman of the Commerce Department said.

The announcement that use of turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, was mandatory, came on the same day that the Center for Marine Conservation, a Washington-based environmental group, issued results of a study concluding that the remaining Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are fewer than previously thought. The turtles cannot breathe below the surface; those caught in fishing nets must escape to avoid drowning.

Shrimpers Get Blame

“The wasteful and archaic fishing practices of the shrimping industry have greatly accelerated the Kemp’s ridley journey to extinction,” Michael Weber, the center’s vice president, said.

Mosbacher’s decision to order the use of TEDs raised the specter of port blockades similar to the ones protesting shrimpers initiated in July, just before use of the devices was to become mandatory. The blockades caused Mosbacher to delay enactment of the regulations. Environmental groups then took the commerce secretary to federal court over the issue.

Mosbacher assigned Commerce Undersecretary John A. Knauss the lead in developing the department’s position. In the announcement Tuesday, Knauss said there was no other decision that could have been reached after all the evidence had been examined.

“I have weighed all the facts and concluded there is no other choice under the Endangered Species Act but to resume the original TEDs enforcement regime,” he said in a statement. “Secretary Mosbacher wanted a dispassionate look at this whole matter to see if there wasn’t any way to protect the turtles while recognizing the legitimate economic concerns of the shrimpers, and I have concluded that, to comply with the law, the only way to ensure protection of these vanishing species is through the use of TEDs.”

Trawling Time Limit

As an interim measure, Mosbacher had taken a compromise position. Shrimpers were allowed to fish without the turtle excluder devices, but only if they raised their nets every 105 minutes to give turtles trapped in the nets a better chance to escape drowning.

But according to the Coast Guard, which is charged with enforcing the regulations, almost all shrimpers were ignoring the time rule.

Tee John Mialjavich, a Louisiana shrimper who spearheaded the opposition to TEDs, could not be reached for comment. U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who supports the shrimpers, called the decision “shortsighted.”

“To close out the livelihood of thousands of shrimpers right now is premature and simply wrong,” he said.

40% Losses Claimed

The shrimpers contend that using the TEDs reduced their catch by as much as 40%, but government biologists who have worked with the program say that figure is greatly inflated.

Since Mosbacher became embroiled in the TEDs controversy, several things have happened, including environmental groups’ distribution of internal Commerce Department documents in which the agency’s scientists urged that TEDs be retained.

Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service charged that Mosbacher had made a serious error in allowing shrimpers to trawl without turtle-excluding devices.

“We’re extremely pleased with the decision,” Steve Moyer of the National Wildlife Federation said. “But we are still very disappointed that it took all this time and effort in the courts, and with public comment, to get this decision.”