Endangered Species Law & Policy

On October 22, 2018, the U.S. Court of International Trade denied the request of various federal agencies to stay an injunction banning the import of Mexican seafood caught with gill nets in the Gulf of California.  The injunction, granted in July, is intended to protect the endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus), which can get tangled in commercial fishing gill nets.  The injunction required the United States Department of Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service, United States Department of the Treasury, United States Department of Homeland Defense, and various individuals acting in their official capacity, pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to ban the importation of commercial fish and fish products caught with technology that results in incidental killing or injury of ocean mammals in excess of United States standards.  More specifically, the ban prohibits import of fish and fish products from Mexican commercial fisheries using gill nets in the vaquita’s range in the Upper Gulf of California.  It is believed that very few vaquita remain in the wild.  In requesting the stay, the U.S. government alleged that it had suffered ongoing serious harm as a result of the injunction.  The court, however, concluded that the government had not met its burden for a stay.