Fisheries Council Pushes To Lift Closures Imposed To Protect Turtles

posted in: July 2003 | 0

Where does jeopardy lie? That’s the question that the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is trying to answer as it deals with the demands of Honolulu-based longline fishers to lift restrictions intended to reduce the number of endangered sea turtles injured or killed after being hooked on longline gear.

In its heyday, the longline fishing fleet hooked up to 750 turtles a year. That stopped in 1999, when a federal judge sided with conservationists and imposed curbs that, in their present form, are believed to result in no more than 60 turtles a year being harmed by the fleet. The higher figure was deemed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to place the survival of some of the four species of turtles taken (leatherback, loggerhead, olive ridley, and green) in jeopardy of extinction. But with the current restrictions in place (including a ban on swordfish fishing and closures of areas to the south of Hawai’i to all longlining in April and May), the total allowable “take” of turtles has been reduced by a factor of 10 or more. This, say the scientists, results in no jeopardy to any of the species.

The initial restriction of fishing effort came about as a result of a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations seeking to protect sea turtles. Now, another lawsuit, this time filed by the Hawai’i Longline Association, is the driving force for regulatory relief. As explained by NMFS staff at last month’s meeting of the council, talks aimed at settling the HLA lawsuit seem to have as a necessary, if not sufficient, condition the lifting of some or all of the seasonal southern closure. To enable this to occur, new federal regulations have to take effect by next April 1, which means the council has to authorize the rule change on or about the first of September 2003.

Thus, the council voted at the June meeting to have its staff work with the NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office “to prepare a complete regulatory amendment package” to be presented to the council for its consideration at “a special meeting to be held in late August or early September.”

The Straw that Breaks…

The basic idea behind the council’s action is that somewhere between 60 and 700 is a number below which turtles can recover from the insults inflicted not only from Hawai’i longline fishing but also from poaching, egg harvesting, habitat destruction, longline fishing by other fleets (including foreign and California-based) and the use of other types of fishing gear. To assist the council in its deliberations, the NMFS Honolulu laboratory prepared a preliminary report illustrating the impacts to turtles of “tweaking” existing restrictions on the longlingers. Estimates of the number of turtles of each species taken by lifting the southern closure for one or both months were prepared. The result of these modeling studies suggests that with the complete lifting of the April-May closure, turtle takes would increase by about 19 turtles of all species.

The NMFS data were sent to the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee in May. After reviewing it, the SSC came to the conclusion that total turtle deaths would increase “by only six turtles of all species combined.”

“So few additional mortalities,” the SSC reported to the council, “cannot be a rational basis for a fishery closure of such magnitude, nor for a determination of jeopardy.” And so it recommended “that the council eliminate the southern April/May closure.”

As it turns out, the SSC’s estimate of turtle deaths was half of what scientists at NMFS’ Honolulu laboratory predict would occur. Don Kobayashi, who did most of the modeling, says the SSC appears to have used a mortality rate of about 30 percent. But that rate applies to the type of fishing done in the 1990s, which was mixed tuna and swordfish, involving deep-set hooks (tuna) and shallow-set hooks (swordfish).

The 30 percent rate, says Kobayashi, was “fairly good for the old fishing effort, but now you have only deep-set lines, where the mortality is significantly higher than shallow-set.” With the deep-set hooks, average mortality comes to about 67 percent of all turtles hooked. Applying that to the predicted increase of 19 turtle takes that would occur if the seasonal closure was lifted, the result is 12.4 additional turtle deaths, and not the 6 predicted by the SSC.

For leatherbacks, which are critically endangered in the Pacific, lifting the closure would have a disproportionate impact. The numbers of turtles predicted to be killed increases, from 4.5 under the current regulations to 10 with no closure. “For leatherbacks,” says Kobayashi, “we’re talking about 5.4 additional predicted mortalities. And the original intent of the closure was to protect leatherbacks mainly.”

Correct or not, the SSC’s finding was eagerly embraced by the council. It voted to direct NMFS and council staff to prepare the amendments to the longline rules needed to lift the two-month closure, and also requested NMFS headquarters, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, to share with the council and the SSC the methodology agency scientists used to determine “the level at which sea turtle takes are likely to jeopardize the continued existence of each species.” Presumably, if the council knows this, it can then modify its fishing regulations so as to maximize allowable fishing effort to the point where the “jeopardy threshold” is reached but not crossed.

Scholasticism

The search for such exquisite precision is nothing but scholasticism run amok, according to Paul Achitoff, the attorney for Earthjustice whose arguments in federal court led to the imposition of the more restrictive regulations on the longline fleet. “NMFS,” he says, “has backed itself into an untenable corner by allowing any takes of turtles that are already in jeopardy. Under the law, they should not be allowing any leatherback takes because there is no question that leatherbacks are being jeopardized regardless of what happens with the Hawai’i fishery. Any number is jeopardy. When they try to decide, ‘should we allow 12 more, or 17 more,’ there is no answer. It’s an absurd question.”

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Achitoff continues. “The reality is that any appearance of scholasticism, of rationalism, is totally wrong. It is all political. Science and the law say they should not be allowing any turtle mortalities. What they are doing here is asking what they can get away with politically, not scientifically.”

Achitoff sees what is occurring with the HLA lawsuit as part of a larger national picture. On behalf of the groups he represents, he has filed a motion to intervene, which “has been pending for months,” he says. “The industry sues the government, and the government tries to cut industry a sweetheart deal to get out of litigation… They cut out intervenors, who are always conservation groups. That’s what they’re doing, and it has nothing to do with either science or the law.”

A West Coast Loophole

In the years since the court order banning swordfish-targeted longline sets to Hawai’i-based vessels, about 20 of the vessels that used to be active in the swordfish fishery here have headed to the West Coast. There, they have been able to fish for swordfish in international waters (even the same waters they used to fish while based in Hawai’i) without permits, observers, turtle bycatch reduction devices, or any of the other requirements imposed on the Hawai’i fleet. All that NMFSrequires of such vessels is that they keep a logbook that reports, among other things, interactions with protected species. According to those self-reports, notoriously unreliable, between August 1995 and December 1999, 92 turtles were caught (including 33 leatherbacks). None of the caught turtles died as a result, the fishers reported, and just two of them (both leatherbacks) were reported to have been injured.

Last month, the Pacific Marine Fishery Management Council, which regulates fishing off the West Coast of the United States, rejected a proposal that it adopt rules identical to those imposed on the Hawai’i longline fleet, which would have eliminated the loophole. Todd Steiner, head of Turtle Island Restorations Network, a plaintiff in the Hawai’i litigation, called the Pacific council’s inaction “an embarrassment… The Pacific leatherback is sliding toward extinction and the council’s ruling is accelerating that decline.”

Black Corals In Trouble

The beds of deep black coral in the ‘Au’au Channel between Moloka’i and Maui may be but a distant memory in the not-too-distant future. Ricky Grigg, an expert in precious, deepwater corals who chairs the Western Pacific council’s Precious Corals Plan Team, reported that the black coral “trees” were being taken at sizes too small to allow them to reproduce for any meaningful length of time. As a result, recent surveys by underwater submersible vehicles showed few corals in the one-to-two-year age class – a sign that, in years to come, the abundance of mature corals will be much less than it is now. Already, Grigg reported, since 1976, “the biomass of black coral in the overall bed … has decreased by about 25 percent.”

Another problem identified by Grigg was the presence of an invasive alien soft coral, Carijoa riisei. The invader has “overgrown large areas of the substratum, as well as many adult colonies of both species of commercial black coral. This invasion may be contributing to a decrease in the recruitment of both species of black coral at shallower depths.” The Carijoa was introduced to Pearl Harbor in 1972, and has now been reported around the eight largest Hawaiian islands. While the Carijoa blankets large beds of black coral at depths between 80 and 110 meters, beyond the reach of divers using SCUBA, Grigg has speculated that the invasive coral may be having an impact on the recruitment of young coral at shallower depths.

Grigg concluded that “more stringent management measures” should be imposed – including an increase to 48 inches from the present 36 the size of black coral trees that can be taken. At present, state regulations allow divers who have been active for five years or more to take 36-inch trees, while newcomers to the fishery have to abide by the larger size limit. (Because the fishery is almost entirely in state waters, state regulations govern the take of black coral.)

Council members questioned Grigg’s survey results, noting that the use of the submersible made it more difficult to arrive at precise estimates of coral size (in years past, surveys were made using SCUBA gear). The council was sympathetic to the views expressed by five of the coral divers (average age, 57 years) who oppose further restrictions on their trade. The divers “see no need to change any existing state law,” they wrote the council, “as the divers who are grandfathered in to the state exemption are all old and ready to give up anyway… any perceived threat from them would be short-lived at best.” The state seemed to side with the divers. Walter Ikehara, representing the state, told the council that the chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources “wants a deferral” of the matter to give NMFS and the state Division of Aquatic Resources “more time to think about impacts on the fishers and the resource. We’re not ready to support the recommendation” of the Scientific and Statistical Committee to impose stricter limits.

In the end, the council members went along with the state and agreed to take no action until the council, NMFS, and the state “have an opportunity to further review the data, discuss the issue, and develop a coordinated management approach for black corals.”

As far as the harvest of other precious corals is concerned, Grigg reported, the only company to get a permit in recent years – ADE (American Deepwater Engineering) went out of business in 2001. The company attributed its problems to President Clinton’s designation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where many precious corals are found, as a sanctuary. Grigg, however, said a disappointing auction of the precious corals was also to blame for the company’s losses. Only five or six bidders attended ADE’s auction and revenues generated were not sufficient to keep the company going, he said.

Signs of Bad Times

One of the most important fisheries in Hawai’i is that for skipjack tuna, or aku. Traditionlly, the aku are caught by pole-and-line fishers close in to shore, in state waters. Most aku are somewhere between four and 15 pounds, although in the summer, larger fish move into Hawaiian waters and weights can be up to 30 pounds.

From 1948 to 1980, the aku fishery produced more revenue than any other fishery targeting tuna and tuna-like fish in Hawai’i. It peaked at $12.6 million in 1973. The closure of the Honolulu cannery in 1985 resulted in the fishery shrinking further. Since then, aku has been marketable only as fresh fish or, occasionally, dried or smoked. In 2001, state figures report, aku sold by the pole-and-line vessels amounted to $1.4 million (for 990,000 pounds).

Since 1998, the aku catch has plummeted, the council was told, and now consists of “small and extra-small fish,” according to Walter Ikehara of the state Division of Aquatic Resources. Just four boats are active in the aku fishery, which has been hurt more than any other fishery by “homeland security” issues since September 11, 2001. The closure of Pearl Harbor to aku boats has meant increased fishing effort on the windward O’ahu coast, particularly Kane’ohe Bay.

Blue marlin stocks may also be nearing trouble. Stocks of this popular sport fish are approaching a condition described as “overfishing” by the National Marine Fisheries Service – a condition in which the amount of fish caught is so great that it impairs the species’ ability to reproduce at a sustainable level. While the Hawai’i catch of marlin represents less than 6 percent of total catches of blue marlin in the Pacific, federal fisheries law requires action when the estimated catch of a species approaches what is called maximum sustainable yield, or MSY. The council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee prepared a list of possible management options, including requiring discards of all blue marlin, requiring use of heavy tackle by charter boats (the lighter the tackle, the more strain on the fish, and the less its chance of surviving should it be caught and thrown back), and prohibiting the use of live bait (hooks on lures are not swallowed as deeply as those on live bait, and thus the fish’s chance of survival is increased). To address the blue marlin issue, the council voted to have its staff continue to look at possible management measures and asked the NMFS to work with its staff on a program to educate fishers on the best ways to reduce blue-marlin mortality when practicing catch-and-release fishing.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 14, Number 1 July 2003

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