The Trump administration declined a petition to list the Pacific bluefin tuna as “endangered” Tuesday after the Department of Commerce (DOC) found that the fish was not facing any significant threat of extinction.
A petition from the Center for Biological Diversity to list the fish under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) triggered the Commerce Department’s review. The review began under former President Barack Obama and lasted for 12 months before the DOC’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued its findings, according to the notice published in the Federal Register.
The Center for Biological Diversity claimed the tuna was at risk of extinction, based on findings by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“The petition to list Pacific bluefin tuna identified the risk classification made by the IUCN,” the notice published in the Federal Register said. “Species classifications under IUCN and the ESA are not equivalent; data standards, criteria used to evaluate species, and treatment of uncertainty is not necessarily the same.”
The ruling surprised the petitioners after early NMFS statements about the review appeared to agree that the tuna needed protection.
However, “based on the best scientific and commercial data available, including the status review report, and after taking into account efforts being made to protect the species, we have determined that listing of the Pacific bluefin tuna is not warranted,” the NMFS said.
An “endangered” listing in the United States would do little to protect the Pacific bluefin tuna. U.S. fishermen only accounted for 2 percent of the roughly 37 million pounds of Pacific bluefin caught in 2014, NPR reports.
The amount of tuna imported into the U.S. is also low — only 3 percent in 2014 — according to federal catch data.
Conservationists are calling for a sushi boycott until the Pacific bluefin is protected under the ESA.
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If it wasnt those troublemakers from Greenpeace destroying the jobs of Tuna Fishermen back in the 1990’s with this Dolphin Safe Tuna hoax and the fake film taken by some eco-freako now its those idiots from the Center for Biological Diversity wanting bluefin tuna listed if these ecology freaks wernt already destroying the livleyhood of loggers and burning up the trees with ths Spotted Owl fiasco or cutting off the water to the Klamath Basin Farmers over some useless sucker fish and a salmon confiscating(Stealing)a farmers tractor over a stupid lizard or blocking off private lands over something(A Dragon perhaps maybe a unicorn)and using the ESA to get their way and im glad to see Trump putting a end to this poppycock and telling the Eco-Wackos to GO POUND SAND