Tag Archives: New Rules Ban Seafood Imports

New Rules Ban Seafood Imports That Don’t Meet Strict U.S. Standards for Marine Mammal Protection

MarineMammalsThe National Marine Fisheries Service issued regulations Thursday prohibiting seafood imports from nations whose fisheries kill more whales and dolphins than U.S. standards allow. Each year around 650,000 whales, dolphins and other marine mammals are unintentionally caught and killed in fishing gear worldwide. Under the new rule, foreign fishermen must meet the same marine mammal protection standards applied to U.S. fishermen or their fish will be banned from the lucrative American seafood market. The rule is the result of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by conservation groups two years ago. The new rules will be put in place gradually with full implementation by 2022. Exporting nations will now need to track and monitor fisheries and whale, dolphin and other marine mammal populations, modify fishing gear, and may even have to close fishing in some areas to limit entanglement risk. Read the rest here 10:51  Today, NMFS published a final rule implementing import provisions of the.