About Michele Kuruc

Michele Kuruc is vice president of oceans policy for the World Wildlife Fund-US. She is one of WWF’s global experts on illegal fishing, and the international treaties that address it. She also leads WWF’s fisheries team as well as WWF’s work focusing on the American government’s activities to stop illegal imports of fish. Michele came to WWF after more than six years at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, where she worked on illegal fishing and enforcement, anti-piracy, satellite-based vessel monitoring, traceability and improved governance. Projects took her to central and Southeast Asia, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean. Michele is a lawyer, and has served in the judicial and executive branches of the US government.  She supervised NOAA’s legal enforcement efforts for many years. She was also a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice in the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section. Her cases dealt with polar bears, killer whales, bald eagles, saguaro cacti, wolves, sea turtles and many types of fish. She has been the point of contact for the relationship with Royal Caribbean since its inception.