Conservation groups move to stop sea turtle deaths from shrimp trawling

Conservation groups today asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to hold the National Marine Fisheries Service accountable for its role in the shrimp trawl-related deaths of endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2011 alone, an extraordinary number of sea turtles — more than 1,400 — have washed ashore dead or injured in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic Ocean. The Fisheries Service has linked these “strandings” to drowning in shrimp fishing nets. Despite this rise in sea turtle strandings and the devastating impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, the Fisheries Service has not fulfilled its duty to protect these imperiled animals from harm…. Source: Center for Biological Diversity