August, 14 2013, 03:24pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info@peer.org
Longlines Killing Pacific Seabirds at Record Rate
NOAA Admits Official Counts Significantly Underestimate True By-Catch Toll
WASHINGTON
Longline fishing fleets in the Pacific Ocean are killing and maiming more seabirds at the highest rates recorded, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The growing loss of seabirds caught on hooks or tangled in fishing gear appears to signal that National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mitigation plan implemented a decade ago has not curbed this unintended harvest.
Fishing fleets in oceans across the globe utilize longlines dangling thousands of hooks on lines at various depths. This and other indiscriminate fishing methods have sparked concerns about the accidental capture of non-target species such as marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds. Since it implemented by-catch reduction plans, NOAA has been tallying "interactions" with non-target species over the past decade.
Albatrosses, fulmars, boobies and other seabirds grab the bait on hooks towed behind fishing boats. They are often impaled on barbed hooks or become snarled in lines or other gear. If unable to free themselves, they are dragged below the surface and drowned. Even if released, they are often fatally injured. NOAA tallies for Hawaii-based longline fleets -
- Show a five to ten-fold rise in the rate in which seabirds are taken over the past decade (2004-13) in shallow-set longlines in which all fleets have coverage by fishing observers;
- Understate by between one-quarter and one-half the actual seabird "take" on fleets which have observer coverage; and
- Are incomplete for deep-set longline fleets, which have low rates of observer coverage. A NOAA study estimated that the number of seabirds taken in 2010 were likely nearly four-times the official totals (220 versus 57 "interactions" reflected in the official reports).
"NOAA implemented its 'National Plan of Action for the Reduction of Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries' back in 2003 but these numbers indicate that the plan needs more work," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who obtained emails and other records from NOAA under the Freedom of Information Act. "Unfortunately, the records do not reflect any NOAA plans, other than maintaining carcass counts, for upgrading seabird safeguards."
NOAA reports on marine mammal and sea turtle losses from Hawaii-based longline fishing do not show similar upward trends. However, the in-depth study of deep-set by-catch in 2010 estimated that more than three-times as many sea turtles were taken than the official reports (23 versus 7 in the official reports).
"In-depth analysis suggests that the true extent of seabird harvests is significantly and systematically underestimated," added Ruch, noting that many of the seabirds killed in Pacific longlines are threatened species, such as the Black-footed, Laysan and Short-tailed Albatrosses. "Rising seabird by-catch may be yet another symptom of the intensified competition for food on increasingly exploited oceans."
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local, and tribal employees.
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Dems Break GOP Supermajority in Iowa Statehouse with 20-Point Swing in Trump District
In a race that bodes well for Democrats' hopes in 2026, Catelin Drey won by championing "affordable housing, childcare, and healthcare, strong public schools, and bodily autonomy," wrote one progressive Iowa journalist.
Aug 27, 2025
Democrats have broken the GOP stranglehold over Iowa's statehouse with a resounding win in a special election for the state Senate on Tuesday.
In the Sioux City-area district that Donald Trump carried by more than 11 points in 2024 and which had been won by Republicans for 13 consecutive years, Democrat Catelin Drey is projected to have won a convincing 55% of the vote over her Republican opponent, Christopher Prosch.
By taking the vacant seat, Democrats not only added to the mounting evidence for a coming anti-Trump backlash in the midterms, but also ended the Republican supermajority in Iowa's state Senate, which has allowed the GOP to spend the past three years curtailing abortion rights, stripping civil rights protections from transgender people, and chipping away at public education.
Additionally, the Democrats have thrown up a barrier to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who needs a supermajority to confirm appointments and will now require some measure of bipartisan approval.
Like other successful Democratic candidates, Drey's message focused on affordability, with a special emphasis on the cost of living for families. Her slogan was "Iowa's Senate needs more moms."
"She has highlighted issues of particular importance to young parents," wrote Laura Belin for the progressive Iowa politics site Bleeding Heartland. "Affordable housing, childcare, and healthcare, strong public schools, and bodily autonomy."
Drey seized on outrage toward Republican attempts to defund public schools. Teachers, she said in one ad, "shouldn't have to rely on GoFundMes just to do their jobs."
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Drey's victory adds to the already mounting pile of evidence that backlash towards President Donald Trump, whose approval ratings have skidded to near-record lows in recent weeks, will manifest at the ballot box next November.
G. Elliott Morris, a political data journalist, wrote Wednesday in his Strength in Numbers newsletter that "there have been plenty of special elections" this year, with "all of them suggesting a pretty sizable leftward shift in the electoral environment since November 2024."
Citing data from The Downballot's special election tracker, Morris wrote:
On average in 2025, Democratic candidates in special elections are running about 16 percentage points ahead of Kamala Harris’s margin versus Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election. That is 5-6 points higher than the average Democratic overperformance in 2017.
These crushing results, Democratic strategists say, are the reason behind Republicans' frantic efforts to ratchet up gerrymandering in states like Texas, where they control the state legislature.
"If you're wondering why Republicans are gerrymandering the fuck out of red states," said Democratic fundraiser Mike Nellis, "Democrats just flipped a Trump [+11] Iowa Senate seat. That's what they're afraid of."
With Drey's victory, Iowa Democrats have now won four consecutive special elections held in the state, flipping two other Republican-held seats. Riding that wave of optimism, they now have their sights set on a greater target: Iowa's two-term senator Joni Ernst, who comes up for reelection in 2026.
Defeating Ernst would be a significant boost to Democrats' efforts to regain control of the Senate in 2026. That effort may have been helped along by Ernst herself, who responded to questions at a town hall earlier this year about her support for savage cuts to healthcare in the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill Act by callously remarking, "Well, we are all going to die."
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In a video posted to X, Wahls said Tuesday's Democratic victory is further evidence that "the state is in play," after not having elected a Democratic senator since 2008.
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Reining in "burdensome government processes" like environmental and tenant safety regulations—not fighting for programs that would benefit everyone in the US regardless of their wealth or income—was the key to securing "abundance for all," said the authors and their supporters in government, such as Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Josh Harder (D-Calif.).
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"When abundance-supporting politicians are asked about it, Klein's name is often the first word out of their mouth," said Jeff Hauser, executive director of RDP. "But this obscures the powerful coalition of political pundits, politicians, and think tanks that have painstakingly constructed a national movement around 'abundance' for years before the publication of this book. These interested parties have taken on the more detail-oriented work of actually producing policy for abundance, and it is often far more conservative and destructive than implied in Klein and Thompson's superficial tract."
Klein and Thompson rely on a "dishonest or sloppy" interpretation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which they equate with a permitting law and claim requires drawn-out environmental impact reviews, to make their argument that approvals for new infrastructure should be less cumbersome, said RDP.
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"When abundance-supporting politicians are asked about it, Klein's name is often the first word out of their mouth. But this obscures the powerful coalition of political pundits, politicians, and think tanks that have painstakingly constructed a national movement around 'abundance' for years before the publication of this book."
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The report details how—although Thompson and Klein may identify themselves as liberals—their abundance worldview mirrors that of commentators and policymakers on the right, from the libertarian Niskanen Center to Trump's own appointees.
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