Purpose: The Marine Mammal Protection Act includes a goal to eliminate the unintended deaths of marine mammals by individuals fishing for other animals. This bill would eliminate that goal, and instead set a goal for the number of marine mammal deaths caused by commercial fishing.
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Action: OPPOSE. Please contact your Representative and urge him or her to oppose H.R. 843. Tell your Representative that incidental marine mammal deaths are still occurring due to commercial fishing, and eliminating our zero mortality goal would undermine the efforts to curb these accidents.
Talking Points for your letter:
- About 300,000 marine mammals — including whales, dolphins, and manatees — are caught by commercial fisheries every year throughout the world. Thousands of these animals are caught by American fisheries.
- Among the animals ensnared in commercial fishing nets are endangered species such as sea turtles and manatees, with the total number of marine mammals caught per day amounting to about 800 worldwide.
- Commercial fishing gear creates an obstacle course of hundreds of hooks and miles of nets for marine mammals to navigate. These risks will be increased if fisheries are no longer expected to diminish the number of marine mammals caught incidentally in these contraptions.
- H.R. 843 would, essentially, give commercial fisheries a free pass to kill whales, dolphins, polar bears, and manatees that get in the way of their fishing operation. Under the current law fisheries are expected to fix fishing methods that trap mammals unintentionally, but if they are expected to trap a certain number of mammals, these fixes won’t be made.
- Similar legislation was introduced in 2002 and received no support in Congress. Measures to increase the number of accepted incidental marine mammal deaths are generally unpopular. It is therefore vital to oppose H.R. 843.