U.S. sued to curb deaths of sea turtles by shrimping industry

[WorldNews]

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Environmentalists seeking to curb the deaths of an estimated 53,000 sea turtles each year from getting caught in commercial shrimp nets off the southeastern United States sued federal regulators on Wednesday for stronger protections. Oceana, an ocean conservation group, is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service to force the agency to enact closer monitoring of and stricter limits on the number of turtles that can be caught and killed by the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic shrimping industry. "If people knew that their order of shrimp cocktail came with a side of government-authorized sea turtle, they would be horrified," Oceana lawyer Eric Bilsky said in a statement. The fisheries service has estimated that 500,000 loggerhead, green, leatherback, hawksbill and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, all listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, are injured in some way each year by shrimp fishing gear, according to the lawsuit.

 

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