|False Killer Whale Longline Defense||For years, the National
Marine Fisheries Service has illegally ignored its own data,
which show the Hawai'i-based longline fleet currently is
injuring and killing false killer whales at over twice the level
the population can sustain. In 2004, under pressure from an
Earthjustice lawsuit, the National Marine Fisheries Service
finally re-classified the Hawai'i-based longline fishery as
"Category I" -- a designation for fisheries that annually kill
and seriously harm marine mammals at unstainable rates -- due to
its excessive incidental take of Hawai'i's false killer whales.
Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, this
recategorization should have triggered the prompt establishment
of a take reduction team to devise a plan to bring the fishery's
incidental take "to insignificant levels approaching a zero
mortality and serious injury rate." NMFS has failed to do so,
claiming inadequate funding. At the same time, NMFS has never
applied the congressionally-mandated factor