“We’ve gotta smoke ’em out.”
So said Kitty Simonds, executive di rector of the Western Pacific Fishery Man agemen Council, in the moments following the council’s approval last month of a range of measures intended to address overfishing of bigeye tuna.
What Simonds and others on the council wanted to “smoke out” were the bigeye catches by Hawai‘i’s smaller but largely unregulated fisheries: the commercial handline and troll fishers. By voting to establish what is known as a “control date” of June 2, 2005, for bigeye fishing, the council set in motion a system that could eventually force all com mercial fishers who want to pursue tunas in federal waters off Hawai‘i to start reporting their catches under terms of a federal permit.
The handline and troll fishers take large numbers of juvenile bigeye tuna at seamounts and privately set fish aggregating devices off the island of Hawai‘i. Both juvenile bigeye and yellowfin are often lumped together as “ahi” on state catch reports, which makes it difficult to know precisely the impact of this fishery on bigeye populations.
The catch of recreational fishers, who operate under no license or reporting re quirements, is practically unknowable. The state has conducted dock and telephone surveys in an effort to get some understand ing of the quantity and make-up of the recreational catch, but the resulting esti mates, while better than nothing, are not terribly reliable. (Under state law, any fisher who sells any part of his or her catch must have a commercial license and make monthly catch reports to the state. Recre ational fishers are exempt from license and reporting requirements, but many of the self-described recreational fishers regularly sell some of their catch out of coolers along highways or through other informal means.)
In another action related to bigeye over fishing, the council voted its approval of a set of measures intended to beef up the quality of data on recreational catches. Imposing a per mit requirement on recreational fishers put ting their lines into federal waters was dis cussed, but the council stopped short of advancing that idea.
The poor information on Hawai‘i catches is of more than academic interest. As the council staff pointed out in a document outlining means of improving data collec tion, if international management organi zations set quotas for bigeye tuna, “Hawai‘i may get a small quota that is not represen tative of its real catch… Without compre hensive fishery statistics, Hawai‘i’s fishing sectors could be misrepresented in resource allocation.”
Even more fundamental is the health of the stock itself. All signs point to a fishery that, barring meaningful change, is poised to col lapse. The more scientists and researchers are able to know about the health of Pacific populations of bigeye, the greater the chance of heading off disaster.
A Second Vote
By setting a control date for bigeye fishing, the Western Pacific Council was employing a method commonly used by fishery managers in anticipation of future fishery closures or quotas. Basically, it puts fishers on notice that if they wish to assure their right to continue fishing at a time when entry to a given fishery might be restricted, they must demonstrate that they were participating in the fishery as of a certain date. And submitting catch reports or having a license is the customary way of documenting such participation.
In a related move, the council also voted to develop a federal permit system that would be mandatory for the small-boat commercial fleet (handliners and trollers), with recreational fishers able to opt in, should they wish to protect their right to fish at some future date.
Earlier in the day, Peter Young, head of the state Department of Land and Natural Re sources and a council member, made known his strong objections to any additional licens ing requirements for Hawai‘i’s fishers, whether recreational or commercial. In commenting on a motion before the council to begin looking into issues associated with permitting all fishing vessels in the Main Hawaiian Is lands targeting pelagic (open-ocean) species, Young noted that “the state does not have on its schedule any permit or reporting require ment for this. If the need is data, there is no need for permitting… We support alterna tive ways of getting data.”
Paul Dalzell, chief fisheries biologist for the council, pointed out that the measure before the council would not impose a recreational license requirement.
Young was not swayed. “I perceive this as a step toward a federal license,” he said, which would be problematic, since “the state is not pursuing a state license requirement.”
“We’d rather not go down the path of permitting,” Young continued. “This takes us down that path. I don’t want to go there.”
After Young’s speech, the motion was withdrawn, and Young left the meeting.
The occasion for a second vote on a virtu ally identical motion arose later in the day, however, as the council took action on a series of measures intended specifically to address overfishing of bigeye tuna. Taking Young’s place at the council table was Francis Oishi, acting administrator of the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources. Oishi questioned whether the motion would impose a double reporting requirement on commercial small boats, which are already required to submit catch reports to the state.
Council chairman Roy Morioka re sponded that despite concerns over potential hardships to fishers, “we can’t keep shrugging our shoulders” with respect to the need to get good, hard data. The motion passed on a voice vote, with no dissent recorded.
Fresh Versus Canned
When it comes to bigeye tuna, there’s no argument that the fish is in trouble. Stocks in the Pacific Ocean of this prized catch have fallen by some 40 percent over the last 50 years. That the fishery hasn’t crashed is attrib uted to unusually high recruitment since the 1980s. Last year, the National Marine Fisher ies Service determined that the bigeye was in a state of being overfished. Generally, that means that while the overall level of fish remaining in the water is sufficient to con tinue to support fishing, it cannot do so at current levels indefinitely. Under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act, once the council has been put on notice that overfishing is occur ring on a stock within the council’s jurisdic tion, the council is required to take measures to rebuild the stock.
But there’s a significant disconnect be tween the narrow limits of council jurisdic tion and the vast sweep of the fleets that pursue Pacific bigeye. Hawai‘i-based ves sels take on average about 2 percent of the bigeye catch. Most of the rest are hauled in by Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Tai wanese vessels.
Regulation through international agree ments is, all involved agree, an essential ele ment of restoring bigeye stocks to health. Although scientists generally agree there is just one genetic population of bigeye tuna across the Pacific, regulation of the open seas is bifurcated. On the eastern side, there is the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, or IATTC, whose jurisdiction generally falls east of 150º West longitude. And for most of the open water in the western Pacific, there is the recently established Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, whose first meeting occurred just last year. Regulating fishing in the many separate economic exclu sion zones of the South Pacific states comes under yet another international treaty.
The economic interests at play are no less diverse. Longliners take the most tonnage and the highest valued fish, most of which goes to feed the expensive tastes of the Japanese for sashimi. The share of purse-seiners has been growing rapidly, however. Although the purse-seine fleet does not target bigeye, starting about 1994, the frac tion of bigeye tunas taken by purse-seiners has steadily risen, correlating with the prac tice of making purse-seine sets on fish aggregating devices, or FADs. Though the overall tonnage taken by purse-seiners is not as great as that hauled in by the longliners, the impact of the purse-seine takes is disproportionate, since the bigeye they take are typically immature fish that associate with the yellowfin and skipjack tunas that congregate around the FADs.
Hawai`i’s Place in the Sun
The Hawai‘i longline fleet, which makes catches in both the eastern and central Pacific, accounted in 2003 for 3,532 metric tons, or 2 percent of the longline and purse-seine catch Pacific-wide. As the council discussed man agement options to improve bigeye stocks, members and staff underscored the fact that Hawai‘i’s vessels had far less impact than did those of the Asian nations. Regulating catch of bigeye to the point that stocks will see recovery will require international measures, staff told the council.
At the end of its deliberations, the coun cil adopted a range of recommendations intended to reduce overfishing of bigeye. Many of them were exhortatory – urging international agencies to take various mea sures. Included in this category was a pro posal to exempt from regulation fleets tak ing less than 550 metric tons of bigeye in the eastern Pacific – a volume equivalent to 1 percent of the average bigeye catch in that region from 1999 to 2003. (The Hawai‘i fleet falls into this category.)
But even international measures will probably fall short of what is required to rebuild bigeye stocks. For example, begin ning last year and continuing through 2006, the IATTCimposed conservation measures, including closures for purse-seine vessels and longliners intended to reduce fishing mortality. According to a document pre pared by NMFS administrators in Hono lulu and Long Beach, California, a com puter simulation on the impacts of the measures on bigeye populations “found that even if fully implemented for ten years, the measures would have little effect on spawning biomass in the [Eastern Pacific Ocean]: spawning biomass” – a measure of the reproductive health of a fish stock – “would remain well below the level associ ated” with the maximum sustainable yield of the fishery.
In the case of the IATTC restrictions imposed on the Hawai‘i-based fleet, the conservation measures had no impact what soever. The Hawai‘i longliners and their West Coast counterparts were restricted to catching no more than 150 tons of bigeye in the Eastern Pacific. But, because of the time lag between catches and reports of catches, and between reports of catches and tallying them up, and between final tallies and actual publication of notices of closure in the Federal Register, it was December 10, 2004, before a closure could take effect. By then, the 150-ton limit on bigeye catches had long been exceeded, with a total catch for the year of 216 tons. As a report from council staff observed, “the timeliness with which the volume of [bigeye tuna] can be monitored means that even if the quota is exceeded, the fishery closure will occur too late for any serious net conservation benefit.”
Reducing Pressure On Bottomfish
Not only did the council have to deal with overfishing of bigeye, it was also put on notice in late May that the National Marine Fisheries Service had determined bottomfish in the Hawaiian archipelago to be subject to overfishing. Again, the council is under pressure to take remedial action within one year of the notice.
At a basic level, the problems of the two fisheries are similar: too many fishers chasing ever fewer fish. That’s about where the similarities end.
The bigeye spans the Pacific; to pursue this fishery, vessels need to go into federal waters and beyond, to international waters. Most bottomfish grounds in the Main Hawaiian Islands – upwards of 80 percent – lie within the three-mile belt of water surrounding islands that is the state’s jurisdiction.
In Hawai`i, almost all bigeye tunas – approximately 95 percent – are taken by a fleet of around 130 federally permitted longline vessels required to submit detailed catch reports for each set they make. The number of vessels registered to take bottomfish is more than 3,000, with some 800 commercial license holders reporting bottomfish catches to the state, according to Francis Oishi, acting administrator of the Division of Aquatic Resources. While commercial license holders are supposed to submit monthly catch reports, these are often late in the case of part-time fishers –and the later they are, the more unreliable they tend to be. Recreational bottomfishers, more than a thousand of whom are registered, are supposed to abide by a bag limit and are not required to make any reports at all.
The data gap that exists for bigeye tuna, which reflects no more than about 5 percent of the catch so far as the Hawai‘i fleets are concerned, is magnified many times over for bottomfish in the Main Hawaiian Islands. Most estimates of the volume of the unreported catch of recreational fishers set it at levels exceeding that of the commercial fishers.
Despite these differences, the two fisheries pose much the same regulatory conundrum to The bigeye spans the Pacific; to pursue this the council: the range of options available to fishery, vessels need to go into federal waters the council to address both bigeye and and beyond, to international waters. Most bottomfish overfishing is circumscribed by the bottomfish grounds in the Main Hawaiian fact that the bulk of the fishing occurs in waters Islands – upwards of 80 percent – lie within outside its jurisdiction and is conducted by the three-mile belt of water surrounding the boats beyond its regulatory reach. islands that is the state’s jurisdiction.
In Hawai‘i, almost all bigeye tunas – approximately 95 percent – are taken by a fleet of
A Problematic History
Overfishing of bottomfish in the Main Hawai ian Islands has been a recurring problem in fisheries management. As early as 1925, members of the territorial Legislature voiced worries over decreasing supplies of bottomfish. In the 1980s, concerns rose again over depleted stocks of two of the highest-value fish, onaga (red snapper, Etelis coruscans) and opakapaka (pink snapper, Pristipomoides filamentous).
After years of hand-wringing, talks with fishers, and even a threat of federal intervention, the state finally addressed the problem in 1998 by setting up a system of closed areas. A total of 20 such areas, accounting for about 20 percent of total bottomfishing grounds, are now off-limits to both commercial and recreational fishers.
But measures of the health of bottomfish across the Hawaiian archipelago still show a fishery under stress. In the 1990s, the council dodged designation of the Main Hawaiian Islands bottomfish stocks as being overfished by arguing that the locally depleted fish stocks were part of larger, archipelagic populations. The spawning potential ration (SPR) of some bottomfish in the Main Hawaiian Islands fell below the 20 percent threshold that defined overfished status at the time, but when the depleted Main Hawaiian Island stocks were aggregated with the far healthier, lightly fished Northwestern stocks, the result pushed the SPR above the overfishing boundary.
In 1996, the Magnuson-Stevens Act was reauthorized, and in the process the way in which overfishing was defined was changed. Councils across the country wre required to recalculate the health of the fish populations under their jurisdiction. In 2003, when the Western Pacific council finally submitted a stock assessment of bottomfish that NMFS found acceptable, it supported the NMFS designation of the fishery as being subject to overfishing.
Now the council has a year to put into effect measures to bring levels of fishing down to the point where overfishing is no longer occurring. At its June meeting, the council approved a motion to have its staff begin investigating a range of options for cutting back bottomfish fishing. Among the option are:
- Closing Penguin Banks. This rich fishery off Moloka`i extends into federal water. Not only does it account for the largest single area of bottomfish grounds under federal jurisdiction, it yields a substantial portion of the commercial catch of Main Hawaiian Islands bottomfishers.
- Imposing a closed season.
- Incorporating state regulations for bottomfish into the council’s bottomfish management plan.
- Requiring federal permits and logbooks for all fishers on federal bottomfish grounds.
Fish Stew
Setting Records: Despite trouble on the bigeye front, the number of hooks set by the Hawai`I longline fleet continues to grow. Thirty-two million hooks – a record – were set by the fleet in 2004. And that may be broken in 2005, if the first quarter numbers are any indication. From January though March, 8.45 million hooks were deployed, or 1.4 million more hooks than in the first quarter of 2004.
Some 142,000 bigeye were landed in 2004. In the first quarter of 205, 39,000 – a record for a three-month period – were caught; if that pace continues, 2005 will see nearly 160,000 bigeye taken by the longline fleet.
In 2005, 117 longliners were fishing out of Hawai`i. According to NMFS, that is an increase of 16 over the same period last year. Much of that increase NMFS attributes to the closure of the California-based longline fishery and the draw of the reopened swordfish fishery in Hawai`i. As NMFS noted in its first-quarter report, “Interactions between swordfish-targeting longline gear and sea turtles in California caused almost all these vessels to migrate to Hawai`i.” Many of those same vessels had entered the California fishery when the Hawai`i longline fishery was closed several years ago as a result of turtle-longline interactions.
Shark Finning Continues: Paul Ortiz, the senior enforcement attorney for NMFS’ Southwest Region, reported that in Guam, a crew member of the Japanese fising vessel Ryosho Maru had been charged with violating the federal ban on shark finning. Ortiz said June Vespiras Dalloran had landed 30 pounds of shark fins without corresponding carcasses. The case was settled with a $1,800 fine.
Last March, in American Samoa, a NMFS enforcement officer confiscated about 8,000 pounds of shark fins as they were being transferred from fishing vessels into a shipping container in the port of Pago Pago. According to a report from island officials to the council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is seeking forfeiture of the fins.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 16, Number 1 July 2005