Suit Filed to Ban Shrimp Imports That Endanger Sea Turtles

An environmental group sued the federal government Monday, seeking a ban on shrimp imported from nations whose fishing fleets do not protect endangered sea turtles.

Earth Island Institute, which filed suit in U.S. 9th District Court in San Francisco, estimated that the suit could affect as much as $1.8 billion worth of shrimp--the entire amount imported annually.

The move follows lawsuits by Earth Island aimed at restricting imports of tuna caught in ways that endanger dolphins. Imports of shrimp have twice the dollar value of U.S. tuna imports.

Though government attorneys declined to comment until they could study the lawsuit, many environmental and government researchers working in the decade-long effort to protect the turtles denounced the action as inappropriate.

Earth Island filed suit against the State and Commerce departments and two administrators for failing to ban foreign shrimp under a 1989 law--implemented last May--that allows exporting nations to kill no more turtles than the U.S. domestic fleet.

For the past two years, U.S. shrimpers have been required to use turtle-excluding devices, or TEDs--trap doors that allow the turtles to escape fishing nets unharmed.

By all accounts, the devices have been dramatically successful. Turtle deaths blamed on the U.S. fleet dropped 67% by the end of 1991. And according to environmentalists and National Marine Fisheries Service experts, the devices have not lowered the U.S. shrimp harvest rate, as U.S. fishermen had feared.

The State Department has negotiated agreements with 14 Caribbean and Latin American nations to use the devices. One official said that talks have begun with several more of the 85 nations exporting shrimp to the United States, though an Earth Island official said this claim contradicted information provided to the group.

Along with the suit, Earth Island filed a notice of its intent to include a provision in the suit aimed at forcing the U.S. fleet to increase its use of TEDs--from some boats during some seasons to “all boats, all times, all places,” said Todd Steiner, director of Earth Island’s sea turtle restoration project.