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The loggerhead sea turtle was listed as threatened in 1978 under the Endangered Species Act and has received federal protection ever since.
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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.
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Following a successful lawsuit by the Center and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, longline fishing for swordfish was prohibited along the West Coast.
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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.
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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.
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The National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service issued a proposed rule to change the status of U.S. North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The government also proposed listing loggerhead sea turtles around the globe as nine separate populations, each with its own threatened or endangered status.
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The National Marine Fisheries Service declared the loggerhead endangered.
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The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network, represented by Earthjustice, filed suit challenging a new rule by the National Marine Fisheries Service that doubled the number of endangered loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles allowed to be entangled and killed by Hawaii's longline swordfish fishery.
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After five years of delay, the federal government finally proposed to protect more than 739 miles of critical habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles on their nesting beaches along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
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In response to pressure from conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced an area closure for the swordfish drift gillnet fishery in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California from July 25 through August 31 to prevent entanglements and drownings of endangered loggerhead sea turtles.