Raimondo

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL Case No. 3:22-cv-00117-JD

DIVERSITY,

8 Plaintiff, ORDER RE CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT v. 10 GINA RAIMONDO, et al., 11 Defendants.

13 Plaintiff Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has sued defendants National Marine Fisheries Service and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo (collectively, NMFS) under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. § 1361 et seq., and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. The case concerns commercial fishing operations in the Washington/Oregon/California sablefish pot fishery. Sablefish is a bottom-dwelling species that is valued as a consumer delicacy. To harvest the fish, approximately 150 commercial fishing vessels deploy tens of thousands of pots that “sit on the bottom of the ocean and are connected to each other in approximately two-mile-long strings of 15 to 50 pots.” Dkt. No. 1 ¶¶ 4, 69-70. Local populations of humpback whales, including ESA-listed…