In the three years since total allowable catch limits, or TACs, were first set for seven species of highly prized bottomfish around the Main Hawaiian Islands, the annual quotas have steadily grown. From 178,000 pounds the first year, it has now increased to 254,000 pounds for the current year (September 1 to whenever the TAC is reached).
The early TAC is now regarded as having been overly cautious, according to a background paper prepared by staff of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac) that was the basis for discussion of TACs at the council’s July meeting in Kona. In contrast to a 2006 stock assessment that found that fishing pressure in the Main Hawaiian Islands was a the major factor contributing to overfishing of bottomfish across the archipelago, the background paper stated, a more recent assessment had concluded that bottomfish were no longer experiencing overfishing – although localized depletion in the Main Hawaiian Islands had occurred.
The adoption of the increased quota was not without controversy. Council member Peter Young voiced his concerns: “Each decision we make, all we’re doing is harvesting more and more… While I sympathize with the comments from fishermen, if we have no fish, we will have no fishermen.”
Young commented on the way in which the health of the Main Hawaiian Islands bottomfish stocks was bolstered by assessing stocks on an archipelagic basis, which includes the far more robust bottomfish populations in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. “We continue to mask the status of the bottomfish fishery in the state of Hawai`i because we blend in the numbers of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands with the Main Hawaiian Islands,” he said. Referring to the impending closure of the NWHI in 2011 to bottomfish fishing, Young said, the Main Hawaiian Islands fish needed to be assessed in their own right: “That way when we talk about fishing we can honestly say we have a problem.”
Finally, Young pointed out the unrecorded catches of recreational fishers. “Our responsibility is to consider the status of the fishery as a whole, not just the commercial component,” he said. Referring to the annually increasing TACs, he concluded: “We need to stop this trend, because I think we are moving in absolutely the wrong direction.”
Council chairman Sean Martin waved away Young’s concerns. “Last year, [the TAC] was 241,000 pounds, with a 40 percent risk of overfishing. This year, it’s 254,000, with a 39 percent risk of overfishing,” he said – underscoring his view that the risk of overfishing in the proposed TAC was minimal.
Laura Thielen, a council member representing the state of Hawai`i, asked whether the TAC would be as high as recommended if only Main Hawaiian Islands fish were included in the stock assessment.
Bill Robinson, head of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Pacific Islands Regional Office, noted that the Main Hawaiian Islands “is a subcomponent” of the archipelagic bottomfish stock. “So the absolutely legal Magnuson Act requirement [to end overfishing] doesn’t exist for this subcomponent of the stock.”
“However,” he went on to say, “in support of Peter, this council can define the stock unit any way it wants to … So the council could develop a management scheme based solely on Main Hawaiian Islands [bottomfish]. … Probably it makes a lot of sense to define the stock as Main Hawaiian Islands stock, going on into the future.”
The recommendation to set a TAC for 2009-2010 at 254,000, with a 39 percent risk of overfishing, passed, with Young abstaining.
Young went on to make a motion that “stock assessments for bottomfish focus on the Main Hawaiian Islands as a single stock.”
Robinson noted that there may not be sufficient information to do this, but that the Science Center could be asked to evaluate whether it indeed could achieve this, with a report back to the council at its October meeting. Wespac executive director Kitty Simonds said that the council could recommend that the Main Hawaiian Islands be considered “a discrete management unit… Also, I’d like to remind you that at the 142nd meeting, you endorsed … a recommendation that the stock assessment include an analysis of both components, the Northwestern Islands and the Main Hawaiian Islands.”
Young was not satisfied. “There’s an urgency here, a need to put this in a regulatory format rather than us dancing around the issue.”
On a roll-call vote, Young’s motion failed. Voting with Young in favor were Thielen, Robinson, and Dave Itano, the only fisheries biologist on the council.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 20, Number 3 September 2009
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