This Thursday I am going to receive a special phone call. If what I was told by Connie Barclay a communications director for NOAA is to be believed correct I will be speaking with the head fish cop in the United Sates of America, Alan Risenhoover of NOAA Fisheries . I will be discussing with him the new BILLFISH CONSERVATION ACT H.R. 2706 and the LACEY ACT as well. This will be a very interesting interview for us. On December 7th of 2009, Pearl Harbor day to be exact, I ventured to the head office of NOAA, (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in Silver Springs Md. I met with Rebecca Lent the head of International Affairs for NOAA as well as Dale Jones who was at the time the head fish cop in the country for NOAA Fisheries. Rebecca was wonderful, she was generally concerned with the matter at hand which happened to be the fact that thousands of tons of a certain fish from the Sea of Cortes and the west coast of Mexico are illegally exported into the United States of America each year not to mention the thousands of Marine turtles killed in the illegal long lines used to catch said fish. The fish in question is Corpheana Hippurus, other wise know in Mexico as Dorado, in Hawaii as Mahi Mahi and in the U.S. often referred to as dolphin fish. Dorado is protected under Article 68 of Mexican Fisheries Law. Commercial fishing of this species is not allowed within 50 miles of the coast and out side 50 miles only a small part of it can be caught as incidental by catch when fishing for Shark. The infamous Shark Norma 029. Dorado can not be commercialized when caught as by catch let alone exported to the U.S.A.
Now believe it or not the Americans had no idea that it was illegal to fish Dorado commercially in Mexico until I had brought it to their attention a full year before when I went to NOAA headquarters on December 7th. It actually took me several months along with dozens of phone calls emails and countless quantities of time to convince them of this fact. Sometimes I think back and wonder if bashing my head against a brick wall would have been almost a better use of my time. What I had done in 2008 is shoot video of Shrimp boats from Guaymas illegally catching Dorado at Isla Tortuga, 50 miles to the east of Guaymas but only 20 miles from the baja, well within the 50 mile exclusion zone. We followed these shrimp boats back to Guaymas filmed them unloading the fish and followed the tractor trailers all the way to Nogales Arizona. We lost the fish as they crossed the border. The shipments ended up in southern California. I met with and gave video to NOAA officials in Tucson Arizona. I gave them all the info on the tractor trailers, license plate numbers, the exact time the trucks crossed the border et cetera. They conducted an investigation based on the intelligence I provided them. They know who imported that shipment of illegal fish. I requested that information and more via the freedom of information act (FOIA). I was for some reason denied the specific information on that investigation even though I did receive some of the information I requested, the FOIA I requested was disappointingly incomplete. I have always wondered why they would refuse to at least tell me who the importers were when it was me who brought it to their attention and gave them the Intel in the first place. All this fish that I filmed is illegal to enter the U.S.A. according to the extremely under enforced Lacey Act, which in a nut shell states that if something is illegal to extract in the country of origin it is automatically illegal to import into the United States.
The head fish cop of NOAA at the time Dale Jones told me, during our Pearl Harbor day meeting, that he could not or actually would not enforce the Lacy Act in regards to Dorado unless he had a letter from someone in Mexico, preferably the office of fisheries (Conapesca). This seemed odd to me. Why would someone from the U.S. government need to ask permission from some official from a foreign country, especially Conapesca officials who have a legendary reputation for corruption, if they could enforce their own law. Here we are in 2013 and I have the same question for Mr. Risenhoover. There is only one difference. In April of 2010, after Dale Jones had been fired midst rumors of corruption himself, Mr. Risenhoover wrote a letter to the then head of Conapesca Ramon Corral aking Mr. Corral specific questions regarding Mexican Fisheries Laws in relation to Dorado. My self with the help of others published this letter in the Mexico City news paper La Reforma, the New York Times of Mexico. To the best of our knowledge Ramon Corral never replied to the letter.
The BILLFISH CONSERVATION ACT H.R. 2706 is the new boy on the block. There was bipartisan support for it. It was passed and signed into Law by Obama in October of 2012. My conversation with Mr. Risenhoover will relate to some simple logic. Those who helped get this legislation passed, such as the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) and National Coalition for Marine Conservation (NCMC) and a slew of other NGO’s to numerous to mention, fully expect H.R. 2706 to be enforced. If you are gonna enforce H.R. 2706 don’t you have to enforce the LACEY ACT as well? How’s about showing a little love for the LACEY ACT and the Sea of Cortes, the worlds aquarium.
