U.S. halts Costa Rican shrimp shipments for failure to protect sea turtles

From a news release issued by the Turtle Island Restoration Network and Pretoma:

The U.S. State Department has banned Costa Rican shrimp from being shipped into the U. S. until further notice. The embargo is due to Costa Rica's failure to enforce its laws that require commercial shrimp fishers to protect sea turtles from capture and death in trawl nets by using Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs). Most shrimp vessels that violated the law were never punished when found to be breaking the law, according to the statement by the State Department that is awaiting publication in the Federal Register.

Proper use of TEDs reduces the number of turtles caught in shrimp nets by 90% or more and is required to be used by any shrimp fishery that sells to the U. S.

"Costa Rica can make its shrimp fishery turtle-safe, or it can lose the privilege to sell shrimp to the U. S.," said Todd Steiner, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network, in Forest Knolls, CA (www.seaturtles.org). "Shrimp fishers' non-compliance with TED laws is a chronic problem occurring throughout the world."

TIRN is also in negotiations with the U. S. government after submitting a 60-day notice of intent to sue the US Department of State for its failure to create a meaningful and transparent process of evaluating nations to ensure proper protection of sea turtles in shrimp fishing under Public Law 101-162 section 609 of the U. S. Endangered Species Act. This provision requires nations exporting shrimp to the US to use comparable technology to ensure sea turtles do not drown in shrimp nets.

"The shrimp trawl industry doesn't only ignore TEDs legislation, it also flagrantly violates legislation that prohibits fishing in marine protected areas", said Randall Arauz, Pretoma's president. "Without a national entity willing to enforce the country's sea turtle protection laws, we're left with no choice but to turn to nations that do," meaning the United States.