LOUISVILLE, CO. — The Biodiversity Legal Foundation of Louisville, Co., and fisheries consultant James R. Chambers of Kensington, Md., today filed a formal petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service to list the Atlantic white marlin as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Petitioners also requested that action be taken immediately to prevent the species' rapid slide toward extinction.

White marlin, smallest of the world's four marlin species, range over much of the Atlantic Ocean. The species is a mainstay of the $2.3 billion recreational billfish fishery along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and throughout the Caribbean Sea.

To promote conservation, recreational fishermen now voluntarily release virtually all (approaching 99 percent) of the billfish they catch. However, industrial-scale fishing vessels from many nations, which are targeting more commercially valuable swordfish and tunas, catch and kill large numbers of white marlin and other species of the open ocean such as blue marlin, sailfish, endangered sea turtles, protected marine mammals and juvenile swordfish that are too small to sell legally, the foundation stated.

According to Chambers, a fisheries biologist at Chambers and Associates, a scientific consultancy, "white marlin and these other species will continue to die until it is no longer profitable to fish for swordfish and tunas, whose populations are larger. White marlin will not be able to last that long."

After 30 years of increasingly severe commercial fishing using gear such as longlines, gillnets and purse seines, the Atlantic's premiere gamefish have been driven to dangerously low levels of abundance, according to the foundation.

"In the greatest danger of extinction are white marlin whose population is extremely low and declining rapidly," Chambers said. "In 1999, it had been driven to only 13 percent of its sustainable level (the minimum abundance level that responsible fishery managers would permit). Unless dramatic action is taken immediately, the white marlin will pass the 'point of no return' or functional extinction in less than five years."

The Biodiversity Legal Foundation is a science-based, non-profit organization dedicated to preserving all native wild plants and animals, communities of species, and naturally functioning ecosystems. Chambers and Associates specializes in conserving marine fish and their essential habitats. Chambers was a federal fisheries manager for 30 years. During his final two years, he was responsible for management of Atlantic swordfish and billfish in the Highly Migratory Species Management Division in NMFS headquarters.

According to the best scientific and commercial data available, the white marlin is one of the most critically imperiled, yet unprotected, billfish species in the Atlantic Ocean, said Jasper Carlton, the foundation's executive director. It "clearly merits listing and protection under the Endangered Species Act,"

The petitioners are calling for the U.S. government to exert leadership both domestically and internationally. Mortality must be reduced enough to allow the population to recover and primary spawning and feeding areas must be closed to commercial fishing, the foundation stated.

"This action will also help protect imperiled Atlantic-wide blue marlin, sailfish, swordfish, spearfish, bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna and other oceanic species that depend for their survival on the same essential habitats," Chambers said.

The NMFS has 90 days to make a preliminary ruling on whether ESA listing of the Atlantic white marlin may be warranted.

For additional information on the status of white marlin, see www.Chambers-Associates.org.