U.S. ban on Mexican seafood imports upheld by appeals court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A four-month ban on Mexican seafood imports, specifically those caught in the Gulf of California by commercial fisheries using gillnets, was upheld by a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, it was announced in late November. The ban, which applies to shrimp and other seafood caught in the northeastern Baja California region, was ordered as part of a preliminary order aiming to protect the vaquita, a marine mammal species found exclusively in the Gulf of California region, from extinction. It was the third time the seafood import ban was upheld as part of an ongoing appeals process. Conservationists and environmental groups certainly welcome the upholding of the seafood import ban. At least one person, however, wrote to The Log and stated the seafood import ban is misdirected. “This embargo is poorly designed, as gillnets for those products are banned already and the current threat to the vaquita is the totoaba, and it is not addressing that, instead putting pressure on legal fishers,” Rafa Ortiz, a marine biologist in Mexico, wrote to The Log on Twitter in September. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, nonetheless, maintained the seafood import ban for certain Mexican-caught items. The Trump administration sought...