Updates: Sonar and Fisheries

doi:10.1126/science.298.5598.1535c

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Science 22 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5598, p. 1535
DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5598.1535c

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Environmental groups challenging the deployment of a new U.S. Navy sonar have agreed to let the government conduct restricted tests. Last month, a federal judge in California blocked the Navy from testing the submarine-detection system in a 36-million-km² swath of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii, ruling that environmental regulators hadn't fully considered its impact on whales and other marine mammals (Science, 8 November, p. 1155). Under the deal reached last week, the Navy can run trials in a 2.5-million-km² slice of the contested region until next summer, when the judge expects to hear the full case.

In New England, conservationists, government officials, and the fishing industry last week asked a federal judge to delay imposing strict new catch limits pending resolution of the impact on population estimates of a misrigged research trawler (Science, 18 October, p. 515). Fishing groups claim that mismarked cables invalidated the estimates used to set new quotas, which are due to take effect next August. Government researchers disagree. Now, both sides want up to a year's delay to allow an independent review of the data.