Action timeline

1999 – A court decision shut down the Hawaii-based longline fishery for swordfish. This decision to close millions of miles of the Pacific Ocean to longline fishing prompted the fleet of three dozen vessels to relocate to Southern California.

2000 – The Center and the Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a lawsuit to keep the National Marine Fisheries Service from authorizing a California drift-gillnet fishery until it met requirements to reduce the number of loggerheads drowning in gillnets. Following this lawsuit, the agency agreed to prohibit drift-gillnets in Southern California in El Niño years when loggerheads are present.

January 10, 2002 – The Center and Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a petition for an emergency rule to list the northern and Florida Panhandle subpopulations of the loggerhead sea turtle as endangered species throughout their range.

June 2002 – The Center filed a successful lawsuit to stop an experimental longline swordfish fishery that would have killed 87 loggerhead sea turtles in the same area where the fishing practice was previously banned in Hawaii.

December 2002 – The Center filed a lawsuit against the Fisheries Service for its failure to close portions of the California drift-gillnet fishery during an El Niño year when warmer water temperatures brought loggerheads into contact with the fishery.

2004 – Following a successful lawsuit by the Center and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, longline fishing for swordfish was prohibited along the West Coast.

2006 – The Center fought off a proposal to reopen areas off the California coast to drift-gillnet fishing.

June 2007 – When pressed by the Center, the Fisheries Service denied a permit that would have allowed drift-gillnet vessels to operate in a protected area off the California and Oregon coasts.

July 2007 – The Center blocked a proposal by the Fisheries Service to allow longline fishing for swordfish off the California coast. In the same month, the Center and the Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a citizen petition to list the North Pacific loggerhead sea turtle under the Endangered Species Act and to have critical habitat designated along the coasts of Hawaii and California.

November 15, 2007 – The Center and Oceana petitioned to designate the western North Atlantic subpopulations of the loggerhead as a "distinct population segment" and to reclassify the populations as endangered, as well as to increase protections for key nesting habitat.

March 12, 2009 – The Center, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Oceana filed a notice of intent to sue to force a response to our 2007 petitions.

April 15, 2009 – The Center, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, and a coalition of other conservation groups sued the Fisheries Service to force action to protect endangered and threatened sea turtles from death and injury in the Gulf of Mexico longline fishery.

April 29, 2009 – The National Marine Fisheries Service ordered a six-month emergency closure of the bottom longline fishery in the Gulf; the closure would allow the agency to determine whether and how the fishery could continue to operate while ensuring the survival of sea turtles over the long term.

June 19, 2009 – The National Marine Fisheries Service made a proposal that would allow Hawaii’s bottom longline swordfish fishery to injure and kill nearly three times as many imperiled sea turtles as was currently permitted.

October 8, 2009 – The Center, Oceana, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network reached an agreement with the Fisheries Service establishing a deadline for the agency to respond to our 2007 petition in February 2010.