Japan joined it in 1980, but reserved the right to continue importing products made out of hawkbill and olive ridley catches.
"I believe that New Yorkers are at least, if not more, concerned for the homeless men, women and children who are endangered species on city streets as they are for Kemp's ridley sea turtle," said sponsor Sen. Frank Padavan.
"In 21 years of shrimping I've caught six Kemp's ridley sea turtles and they all went right back into the water alive," Mialjevich said.
Elpidio Marcelino Lopez cut the lights of his red, three-wheeled dune cycle amd skimmed over the dark sand in friendly pursuit of olive ridley sea turtles.
"What I fear is that the Louisiana shrimper will become extinct before the Kemp's ridley sea turtle," Rep. Jimmy Hayes, D-La., said Tuesday in response to the Commerce Department regulation.
The number of female Kemp's ridley sea turtles nesting each year has declined from some 42,000 in the 1940s to no more than 700, according to James Ross, an expert on sea turtles.
Environmentalists maintain the devices will help save the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle from extinction by reducing the number of turtles caught by the shrimpers.