Fisheries Service Decimates Program Of Observers On Hawai`i Longliners
Observer coverage of the Hawai`i longline fleet, which never exceeded 5 percent at any given time, has been cut to the point it is nearly meaningless. In mid-May, the National Marine Fisheries Service confirmed it would be cutting the number of observers from 14 to just two.
The observer program began about a decade ago to give scientists a more precise idea of the number of endangered and threatened sea turtles that are caught by the fleet of roughly 120 active vessels. In addition, the observers have provided valuable information on accidental hookings of seabirds and sharks, as well as overall information on targeted finfish stocks. Without observers, the only other source of information on the hookings of turtles and birds are vessel logbooks – which, on the subject of interactions with protected species, have been notoriously inaccurate.
Eric Gilman of the Honolulu office of the National Audubon Society’s Living Oceans Campaign expressed concern over the cuts. “The obvious impact is we’ll have less information – and no good information at all on trends and time-series. You look at the information that the observers record, look at the observer handbook, and see that their duties are very broad. They collect a lot of useful information.”
In addition, Gilman noted, the “lack of observers makes it impossible to assess the impact of mitigation measures that fishermen are supposed to be employing – for example, to reduce the takes of seabirds. Now there will be no way to determine if the longline vessel operatres are actually employing these measures.”
When asked what the percentage of coverage would be with just two observers, an obviously frustrated Charles Karnella, Pacific Area Office administrator for NMFS, responded, “Oh Lord, I don’t know. It will be less than one percent.”
Stretched Thin
Karnella and his boss, NMFS Southwest Regional acting administrator Rodney McInnis, said the cuts were a result of simply having no more funds to pay for observers. In the past, they explained, the observer program for the Honolulu-based fleet was paid for in a special congressional appropriation, but that was not part of the current year’s budget. Since October, the regional office of NMFS had been able to scrounge funds from the region’s budget, but now the cupboard is bare, McInnis said.
“This program hasn’t been funded throughout the entire year,” McInnis told Environment Hawai`i. “We managed to scrape together funds from different sources to keep observers in the field while hoping other money would be made available through NMFS or, potentially, some supplemental appropriation. Frankly, at this point, I can’t stretch the rubber band any further.”
At past levels, where observer coverage ranged from 3 percent to 5 percent of the fleet, the program cost $600,000 to $650,000 a year. Even at that level, the program was thought to be inadequate and NMFS had hoped to increase the budget and the fleet coverage to a point where coverage amounted to 10 to 12 percent of the fleet.
“Reducing observer coverage means that the quality of the estimates of turtle takes are not as precise as we would like to have them be,” McInnis said. “It doesn’t do anyone a service to have a number in which we have no confidence.”
Karnella agreed. “Statistically, coverage of 3 to 5 percent is kind of dicey.” In lieu of observers, Karnella said, he has been asked to investigate what sort of other methods can be used to monitor the longline fishery. “We’re in the process of doing that right now,” he said. “Up to this point, though, it has not been very promising.”
Jim Cook is chairman of the Western Pacific fishery council. “I guess I’m a little surprised that they [National Marine Fisheries Service] choice this particular juncture to pull the observer program.” Cook said he and other council representatives had tried to get Congress to appropriate additional funds for it. So far they have not been successful, he said, “but we think we are going to be, and thought Rod [McInnis] would wait until we got funding up and on line, but he chose not to do that.”
‘Sufficient Coverage’?
One question that hangs over the longline fishery is whether the cut-back observer program will satisfy the requirement of the biological opinions that made an observer program mandatory. Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service had to evaluate the impact of the longline fishery on the endangered and threatened sea turtles. Over the last decade, several biological opinions resulted, each requiring an observer program as a condition of the ongoing operation of the longline fishery.
The most recent biological opinion was issued in 1998. It specified, as the second required condition of the longline fleet, that NMFS “continue to monitor the Hawai`i longline fishery with a mandatory observer program. Observer coverage of the longline fishing effort shall be sufficient to produce statistically reliable estimates of total sea turtle takes and mortalities and to evaluate the accuracy of logbook data submitted for this fishery. Observers shall also collect information to improve understanding of the dynamics of fishery interactions with sea turtles.”
What constitutes “sufficient coverage” may be open to debate. However, the National Marine Fisheries Service weighed in on the subject with a report in August 1996 that recommended a level of 20 percent coverage of the fleet by observers at any given time. “The number of trips to be observed should be increased considerably from the current 4 percent coverage rate to at least 20 percent coverage to estimate turtle take more reliably,” wrote the three authors of the report, all scientists with the Honolulu laboratory of NMFS’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center. The fewer the number of observed trips, the less likely it is be that observers will witness interactions with turtles, which are admittedly rare events.
In Alaska, the fleet pays the cost of observers. Had any thought been given to making the fleet here pay? Both Karnella and McInnis said prospects for that were slim and, in any event, according to McInnis, a change in the governing Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Management Act would probably be required for this to occur.
Five years ago, NMFS’ administrator for the Southwest Region at the time, Hilda Diaz-Soltero, suggested the Honolulu fleet pay for observer coverage. As reported in the October 1995 edition of Environment Hawai`i, that trial balloon was quickly shot down at a raucous meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.
Under Diaz-Soltero’s plan, the cost to the fleet for a year’s worth of observer coverage would have come to $767,000, assuming a coverage rate of 10 percent. Gross revenue for the fleet in 1993 was $55 million, and for 1994 $42.3 million. The observer program cost would have been 1.4 and 1.8 percent of gross revenues for the two years. Larger boats might be able to absorb such costs without trouble, but, Diaz-Soltero’s plan noted, some of the more marginal, smaller boats might be forced to leave the fleet.
The Western Pacific Council’s Cook was one of those opposed to Diaz-Soltero’s plan. “There are ways industry can carry some of these burdens and make the program work,” he said, but it’s counter productive “to come to industry, say here’s the program and here’s what we are going to do – and you folks have to pay for it.”
Will the Turtles Wait?
Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) are one of the endangered species caught by the Hawai`i longline fleet. Leatherbacks found in the mid-Pacific area are historically from two different populations – one in Malaysia, the other off the western coast of South and Central America. The Malaysian population has been deemed biologically extinct, with just two turtles nesting there in 1994. The population nesting along the Pacific coast of the Americas is heading toward the same fate, say some turtle experts who have studied these turtles extensively.
At a presentation made earlier this year at a turtle population workshop in Florida, a team of scientists led by Richard Reina of the School of Environmental Science at Philadelphia’s Drexel University reported that tagging data from Playa Grande, Costa Rica, suggests that within the decade, the Costa Rican subpopulation will be extinct, and that by 2004, the number of nesting turtles there will drop below 50. In the early 1990s, the nesting population numbered 800-1,000. “Our data,” they wrote in an abstract of the paper they presented, “indicate that the most likely cause of population decline is from unsupportable adult mortality of at least 30 percent annually. Our model also shows that recovery of the population cannot be achieved by conventional beach-based conservation actions to increase production of hatchlings. Data show that bycatch of leatherbacks by fisheries accounts for almost all anthropogenic adult mortality of this species.”
By NMFS’ own estimate in 1998 (contained in the biological opinion), the Hawai`i fleet hooks anywhere between 114 and 231 leatherbacks a year, with up to 23 of them dying as a result of the encounter.
A Tremendous Loss
Karnella regrets not just the loss of data, but also the loss of good workers. “Personally,” he said, “it’s a trial on me because the young men and women who are our observers are the ones bearing the primary burden of this. In my mind, it’s not a particularly fair thing to have done to them. I get to have the distinct pleasure of dealing face to face with them and telling them, you don’t have a job anymore.”
“On a monitoring level, too, the observer program is the only source of information we have on that fishery that’s reliable – not just for turtles and birds, but for finfish, sharks, whatever else,” Karnella went on to say. “That’s a tremendous loss. Without that information, no science is being done to study various aspects of that fishery. It’s a loss to the industry as well. Even though they may not be too crazy about the observer program, in the long run it’s in their interest to have the best information, whether it’s good or bad news.”
Council chair Cook lamented the loss, not just of data, but also of trained personnel. “All these guys are now trained. That’s a big investment in training, and now to let them go is counter-productive, especially if we’re letting them go only to start the program back up in a little while,” he said.
The occasion of dramatic cuts in the observer program, Cook went on to say, should be used to re-evaluate it from the ground up. “Frankly, I feel that persons interested in the longline industry – environmentalists, scientists, fishers – should sit down together and discuss why we are doing this, what the needs are. And then we should ask how we can craft the program to meet those needs.”
On this point, Gilman of the Living Oceans campaign agrees. “This is an example of a situation where environmental groups need to collaborate with industry to lobby for adequate congressional appropriations,” he said.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 10, Number 12 June 2000
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