WILDLEX

The US Navy was using mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar during its training exercises off the coast of southern California.

Since 1987, United States regulations have required that shrimp trawlers generally install turtle excluder devices (TEDs) when operating in U.S. waters where sea turtles are located (Section 609 of Public Law 101-162). A group of countries brought a complaint to the Dispute Settle Mechanism of the WTO.

The defendant is the owner of the Marshall 201, a vessel spotted by a U.S. Coast Guard within the U.S. EEZ surrounding Baker and Howland Islands. The vessel had no permission to fish in the zone. Nevertheless, the vessel carried 130 tons of tuna presumably harvested from U.S. waters.

The plaintiff is American Pelagic, a company whose President and sole shareholder, purchased a large boat, the Atlantic Star, in 1996 to transform it into a massive fishing vessel. In 1997, NMFS issued both a valid Atlantic mackerel permit and a Northeast Multispecies fish permit to the vessel.

This is a criminal case in which a tremendous effort to smuggle psittacine (parrot) birds into the United States from the Republic of Mexico was exposed. There is a quarantine against the importation of such species into the United States. The indictment was in ten counts. Three separate conspiracies were charged (Counts 1, 4, and 7).