“Leaving for fishing trip to Midway .. 2 weeks!! looking for fishermen wanting to go with.. costs just share fuel.. and a few days on Midway..65 foot boat..4 people only, plus captain and one other.Check out Midway.. very pristine and wonderful.. about $1,800 should cover two weeks.. adventure of a lifetime!! not a hire deal..just come with me as I deliver supplies to Midway..leaving late Feb, Early March..exact date open until we get 4 People ready to go…Physically healthy only please!!!”
This ad was posted on craigslist, a classifieds website, on February 7. Interested fishermen were directed to respond to an “email box” at craigslist.org.
Within days of the ad’s posting, staff with KaHEA: The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, stumbled across it while surfing the web. For a group that has been carefully monitoring all potentially harmful or illegal activities relating to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, this ad, says KaHEA’s Marti Townsend, was a big red flag.
According to President George Bush’s proclamation establishing the Papa¬hanau¬moku¬akea Marine National Monument, which encompasses a 100-mile-wide swath of water on either side of the islets and atolls stretching from Nihoa west to Kure, no one is allowed to lure fish, engage in fishing, or possess unstowed gear, except under certain conditions. Bottomfishers with valid permits from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may catch bottomfish and pelagic species until June 2011. Also, sustenance fishing – “fishing for bottomfish or pelagic species that are consumed within the monument, and is incidental to a permitted activity” – is allowed in the monument.
Sustenance fishing in the Midway Atoll Special Management Area is allowed only when it is compatible with the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge’s purposes, the proclamation continues. And while it states that recreational activities at Midway may be permitted when they are for personal enjoyment and don’t result in the extraction of monument resources or involve fee-for-service transactions, it is not clear whether recreational fishing is still permissible at Midway. While catch-and-release fishing has been allowed at Midway for years, last July, Barry Stieglitz, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project leader for the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, has been quoted in published reports as saying that the catch-and release fishing will probably end.
In all cases, boaters entering the monument must have a permit from NOAA unless they are simply transiting. And if they plan to enter state waters, they must have a permit from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, as well.
Concerned that a government contractor might be dovetailing a commercial sportfishing trip with a delivery to Midway, Townsend approached Don Palawski of the FWS about the ad, asking whether the agency knew about or had permitted the trip.
According to Townsend, Palawski had no knowledge of it. Since she did not hear back from him, she said, she assumed that the matter wasn’t being investigated. Frustrated with what appeared to be lax management of the monument’s resources, KaHEA issued a press release on March 2, titled “Illegal fishing, research ‘gold-rush’, biosafety protocol violations, and lack of enforcement,” which included a copy of the ad.
Environment Hawai`i then emailed questions to the ad’s poster, asking who the supplies were being delivered to and what permits, if any, had been obtained. Later that day, a Kenneth Dengler responded, stating that he was merely bringing sails to a boat on Midway that had been bought at a government auction. His email suggests he also planned to tow the boat to Honolulu, if necessary. In any case, he wrote, “The trip is now changing.”
When Environment Hawai`i asked what kind of response he had gotten to his ad, Dengler replied that he had a pretty good one.
“[S]till might be able to offer a half dozen folks the trip( i might have found 120 foot tow vessel to help.. better than 65 footer.., then the trip is ON,” he wrote.
According to Jerry Leinecke of the FWS, the trip was not authorized by the service. He adds that he doubts the Marine National Monument office had approved a permit. Calls to the monument’s permit coordinator and education officer were not returned by press time, although the education officer, Andy Collins, forwarded Environment Hawai`i’s request for information on to the FWS.
Barbara Maxfield, public information officer for the FWS, says that while she cannot say much about the trip, her department’s enforcement office is investigating the matter. She was not aware that the ad was mentioned in KaHEA’s press release.
In its press release, KaHEA complained that decisions regarding the monument were being made without public oversight and that information regarding permitted activities has been kept from the public. KaHEA also noted that a scientist on a NOAA research trip to the monument had illegally extracted and transported coral and cultivated bacteria. It noted that in 2006, permits had been issued to allow a total of 340 people to carry out various activities within state waters.
With regard to the advertisement for fishermen, KaHEA added that the Lacey Act prohibits the offering of unauthorized extractive tours within a refuge in exchange for payment, and that recreational activities within the monument are prohibited on vessels where one has paid for passage.
— Teresa Dawson
April 2007 — Volume 17, Number 10