It’s time for the Fish & Wildlife Service to restore protections for California fishermen
Californian sea urchins, abalone, kelp, and fishermen have a common problem: the popularity of southern sea otters drowns out the concerns of other species and groups.
A charge from Congress
It’s a decades-old problem. In 1986, Congress enacted Public Law No. 99-625, a statute striking a careful balance between the needs of California fishermen and conservation goals for the southern sea otter. The law allowed the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to establish a new sea otter colony off the California coast—on the condition that the agency simultaneously create a “management zone” to protect the rights of California fishermen operating normally in the area after the sea otters’ introduction.
For several decades, FWS largely enforced the law as Congress passed it. Fishermen continued working and the southern sea otter population grew steadily, eventually achieving the delisting threshold the agency set out in its recovery plan. But in 2012, FWS abandoned the management zone—regardless of Congress’ clear instructions to preserve fishermen’s rights.
Under the Endangered Species Act, alleged crimes as simple as “disturbing” a sea otter by causing it to swim in a new direction can earn you up to a year in prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines. That adds up quickly for commercial fishing vessels traveling hundreds of miles per day, as well as for long-established fisheries in areas that otters have moved into. After the government abandoned its protections for California fishermen, they were forced to avoid any fishing grounds where they might encounter sea otters or risk strident prosecution by the agency.
Before the courts
But abandoning the protections within this management zone violated the very law that allowed FWS to act in the first place. Congress had specifically charged FWS with preserving fishermen’s rights if it established a new sea otter population. Instead, the agency chose to disregard the law and prioritize the growth of the species, at any cost to Californians’ rights or the survival of other native species.
Pacific Legal Foundation emphasized these points in a 2013 lawsuit representing the California Sea Urchin Commission. A California court dismissed the lawsuit after five years of litigation, relying on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council to defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law. Unsurprisingly, the agency approved its own decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron in 2024, holding that courts, not agencies, are the interpreters of the law. Now, individuals and groups challenging bad behavior by the government are no longer heading to court with the odds preemptively stacked against them. While the challenges for California fishermen remain in place, two petitions filed by PLF aim to change that.
Fighting for reform
PLF’s petitions, filed April 24, urge the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to restore protections for fishermen within the southern sea otter management zone off the California coast and, in light of the species’ recovery, delist the otter from the Endangered Species Act.
PLF argues that FWS cannot disregard parts of the law to prioritize its own interests, nor can it ignore evidence of recovery to continue claiming a species is threatened. The agency has an obligation to honor fishermen’s rights, and the sea otter has exceeded the recovery metrics the agency established. As a result, the petitions argue, it’s time to reestablish the management zone and delist the otter.