Fewer rare sea turtles will die on the swordfish industry's
longlines in Hawaii under an agreement between environmental
groups and the government. The agreement settles a lawsuit
challenging the federal government's plans that would have
dramatically increase the number of turtles that could be
killed. The Turtle Island Restoration Network, Center for
Biological Diversity and KAHEA sued the National Marine
Fisheries Service for allowing 46 imperiled Pacific loggerhead
turtles to be hooked last year. The new court-ordered settlement
caps the number at 17 per year. Meanwhile the National Marine
Fisheries Service is weighing whether loggerheads need more
protection under the Endangered Species Act. "It made absolutely
no sense to have one arm of the National Marine Fisheries
Service increasing the lethal capture of loggerheads, while the
other arm is in the process of determining whether loggerheads
should be uplisted from threatened to endangered," said Todd
Steiner, biologist and executive director of Turtle