The Honolulu-based longline fleet, still reeling from fishing limits imposed as a result of a federal court order, recently came within a hair of being shut down entirely.
The event that sparked near panic among members of the Hawai`i Longline Association (HLA) was the catch of hundreds of swordfish by as many as eight Honolulu-based vessels fishing in the North Pacific. Three of the vessels carried federal observers; collectively, those three boats landed four sea turtles, with at least one of them known to have been killed. Three of the turtles, including the one killed, were loggerheads, listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. The other was a leatherback, whose federal status is endangered.
The January and February turtle “takes,” as they’re called under the federal Endangered Species Act, exceed the number allowed for the entire calendar year.
Given the numbers of swordfish landed, “it’s hard to believe that some vessels aren’t targeting swordfish,” said Charles Karnella, Pacific Islands Office Administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “There’s something going on; people are changing their behavior and starting to catch more swordfish,” Karnella told members of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council at their meeting in March. NMFS law enforcement officers are looking into the matter; the catch of several of the boats was confiscated when they arrived in port. Investigations are pending into the actions of at least three vessels.
As a result of the apparent effort of some boat owners and crew to catch swordfish, Karnella announced that NMFS would be publishing emergency rules to prohibit all fishing above 26¼ North latitude and would prevent the landing of more than 10 swordfish by any longline vessel arriving in Honolulu that had been fishing in waters north of the equator. The rules appeared in the Federal Register of April 5 and took effect immediately.
Jim Cook told Environment Hawai`i that the Hawai`i Longline Association (HLA) responded even before the government did when it learned of the swordfish and turtle catches. Cook is co-owner of Pacific Ocean Producers, supplier of fishing gear, and Vessel Management Associates, which owns longline vessels, and has been involved in HLA since its formation.
“HLA found out long before the government ever knew,” he said. Federal regulations that govern the longline fishery “were specific about gear,” specifying the minimum depth of the “sag” between two floats in longline sets and outlawing the light sticks that customarily were used to attract swordfish. But, he added, the regulations did not prohibit fishing for tuna in the areas of the North Pacific where swordfish are abundant.
“So a person, or persons, with [federal] observers on board their vessels, went into these areas and set gear, theoretically in accord with the regulations,” Cook said. “And they caught swordfish, since they were in the higher latitudes.”
“Theoretically, there would be nothing wrong with that,” he continued, since the regulations allow the occasional – accidental – catch of swordfish. “But if the person went back the next day and caught more swordfish, you’d start to think he was targeting swordfish. And the HLA position is, this is not what the court or the law intended.”
“The real outcome of this is, as you would suspect, in those areas where these boats went, they caught turtles,” Cook said. “So the interest of HLA was best served by encouraging the government to close that area and limit the take of swordfish. We want to make sure we’re in compliance with the regulations. It was obvious this was the only way we could control incidental take,” Cook said.
Karnella confirmed that federal observers were on board three of the boats catching the swordfish – and turtles. (Under federal regulations, observers must be present on at least 20 percent of all fishing trips made by the longline fleet.)
When U.S. District Court Judge David A. Ezra first closed the swordfish fishery, in 2000, and in later federal regulations implementing that closure, fishers were discouraged from taking swordfish by a provision that prevented them from profiting from any sale of swordfish. At least 30 percent of the gross revenues from the sale of most incidentally caught swordfish had to be donated to a charity designated by the vessel operator. That requirement was eliminated in 2001.
Had it been in place, would it have prevented the targeting of swordfish? “Probably,” Cook says.
Karnella could not recall what prompted NMFS to remove from the ongoing emergency rule governing the longline fishery language banning profits from swordfish sales. The language was removed last June. “In retrospect, the most foolproof thing would have been to put in a landing limit,” he told Environment Hawai`i. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the brilliant idea of doing that until just recently.”
By the end of March, Karnella said, “no vessels were fishing in northern waters. They moseyed on out of there, once we had a meeting with industry and explained we’d be taking emergency action. The take of loggerheads that occurred could not continue, and if it did, it was possible the whole fishery was going to get shut down.”
What Cook and other longline vessel operators find especially galling is that the Hawai`i boats whose actions caused all the trouble were fishing alongside boats now based in California that use the same gear and were catching just as many swordfish – and presumably turtles. Many of the California boats once formed part of the Hawai`i fleet but relocated to the West Coast in the wake of Judge Ezra’s ruling. According to Cook, as many as 27 Hawai`i boats moved to California, with about 10 still actively fishing in the North Pacific.
Karnella explained the discrepancy in rules governing Hawai`i-based longliners versus their California counterparts. The Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which regulates fishing off the coast of California and Oregon, has not adopted a Fishery Management Plan for pelagic – or open-ocean – species of fish. Consequently, fishing boats that land their pelagic catch (tuna, swordfish, mahimahi, and the like) in California are under no constraints to limit their catch of sea turtles or any other animal that enjoys federal protected status.
The Pacific Council is in the process of developing such a plan, Karnella said, and in the process of its approval, there will be formal review by the agency to see that protected species are not placed in jeopardy by the longline fishery.
Renewed Consultation
In the meantime, the National Marine Fisheries Service has re-initiated consultation on the take of endangered and threatened sea turtles by the Hawai`i longline fleet. The consultation is required under Section 7 of the federal Endangered Species Act when NMFS or any other federal agency has information that might change their previous determination of the level of impact a permitted action has on a given species.
Acting regional NMFS administrator Rodney McInnis set forth two major reasons for the action in a December 12, 2001, memo to Donald Knowles, director of NMFS’ Office of Protected Resources. Both reasons seem to anticipate that the longline fishery’s impact on turtles will be found to be less harmful than was determined in the previous consultation, completed on March 29, 2001.
McInnis cites new population modeling for the leatherback turtle that has been undertaken by Milani Chaloupka, of the University of Queensland, Australia. Chaloupka’s work, McInnis writes, “demonstrated significant promise to help NMFS better assess the viability of the western Pacific leatherback stockÉ In addition, recent eastern Pacific leatherback population censuses for the 2000/2001 season indicate that the nesting population continues to increase slightly.”
“Additionally,” McInnis continues, “there are significantly fewer vessels fishing” than the previous analysis had assumed.
Until the consultation is completed, the previous one – with the limits on incidental takes of turtles – remains in effect. According to a schedule attached to McInnis’ memo, the consultation is expected to be completed, with release of a new biological opinion, sometime next month.
Restrictions Help Loggerheads
In the first year since the restrictions on longline fishing were imposed by Judge Ezra, the effect on loggerhead turtles seems to be positive. In 2000, the total number of loggerhead turtles estimated to have been hooked by the longline fleet came to 114; a year earlier, 369 loggerheads were estimated to have been taken, or more than three times as many.
Leatherbacks experienced no similar relief. The estimated number of those turtles taken in 2000 was 132 – the exact same estimate as in 1999.
State Incidental Takes
The state of Hawai`i Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources, has asked the federal government to issue an incidental take permit, covering turtles caught accidentally by near-shore recreational fishers. Prompting the action was the threat of a lawsuit made by the Hawai`i Longline Association, which has claimed that longliners have borne the brunt of the federal government’s efforts to limit turtle takes, while the recreational fishing sector has been given a pass.
The state requested the incidental take permit in mid-March. The National Marine Fisheries Service will be taking public comments on the request until May 6.
For more information, see the Division of Aquatic Resources’ web site: [url=http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/dar/turtles.htm]http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/dar/turtles.htm[/url]
Should Waikiki Reserve Be Expanded?
The Waikiki Marine Life Conservation District is a no-take fishing reserve. But has it been effective in protecting the resident fish?
In light of the increasingly frequent calls for reserves as a means of protecting fish stocks or mitigating the effects of human activity on coral reefs, the University of Hawai`i’s Kim Holland and a graduate student of his, Carl Meyer, looked at how the Waikiki MLCD is protecting three typical species of fish found there: the kala, or bluespine unicornfish (Naso unicornis), weke, or the yellowstripe goatfish (Mulloides flavolineatus), and the papio, also known as omilu, blue jack, or blue trevally (Caranx melampygus).
The result? In setting aside reserves, size matters, as does boundary placement. Just one type of fish, the unicornfish, is protected by the reserve, Meyer and Holland found. Most of the jacks and goatfishes that were tagged and tracked often ranged outside the MLCD boundaries, which enclose an area of just under a third of a square kilometer.
At the March Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council meeting, Meyer presented the results of the research he and Holland had done. Both the jack and the goatfish had strong patterns of night and day hang-outs, with little time spent lollygagging as the fish traveled between them, Meyer said.
Preferred areas had lots of holes – “were characterized by high rugosity,” as Meyer put it – and hiding places for the fish. But the MLCD boundaries were not drawn to encompass the preferred habitat of the fish; instead, they are straight lights that cut across the various types of near-shore habitat, resulting in a neat square that humans may love, but fish do not respect.
To protect the goatfish and blue jacks, Meyer said, the size of the MLCD would need to be more than tripled, with both long-shore and seaward expansion of its boundaries.
Any chance this might happen? Bill Devick, administrator of the state Division of Aquatic Resources (part of the Department of Land and Natural Resources), generally agrees with Meyer. “I think his conclusion is at least partially correct,” Devick told Environment Hawai`i. Several years ago, based in part on Meyer’s work, the Pupukea MLCD off O`ahu’s North Shore was enlarged.
As for expanding the Waikiki MLCD, however, Devick was dubious. “The basic question is, is this really an area that is suitable for expansion, because, unfortunately, it is rather severely degraded,” he said. Another factor that comes into play is the adjoining Fisheries Management Area on the Diamond-Head side of the MLCD. The FMA is open every other year to fishing and is a popular site among anglers. “There’s always a political problem in including the Fisheries Management Area in the Marine Life Conservation District. That would be one of the considerations that would have to be addressed.”
Instead of expanding the MLCD, Devick said, “what we are looking at now is trying to find some way to perhaps improve the overall habitat in the MLCD. Celia Smith, for example [of the University of Hawai`i] has received some publicity recently for her efforts to control alien algae” that cover a large reef flat in the Waikiki MLCD. “This is the kind of direction we’re moving in.”
“Frankly,” Devick continued, “if we are going to expend energy in trying to have a better protection system for marine areas, we’re better off looking at areas other than Waikiki. We have federal funding to help with this, and we’re going to be hiring a marine protected areas coordinator to help us move the program in this direction.”
Devick would not identify any potential areas, noting that the work of Meyer and UH Professor Kim Holland is going to help in the selection and design of future MLCDs, while the new coordinator would help in educating the public to help assure popular acceptance of whatever recommendations emerge.
“The constituency at Pupukea was critical” for the expansion of the MLCD there, Devick noted. While some fishermen still rankle at the newer and more restrictive regulations, “the combination of the strong segment of the community that wanted to see this happen and the strong scientific basis for expanding the area made the difference in getting this improved expansion in place,” he said.
And Devick agrees that marine protected areas are a vital tool in the protection of fisheries. “It’s now recognized internationally that the only way we’re going to be able to protect resources is to have some substantial portion of protected areas in the ocean,” he said.
Seabirds, Rejoice!
For as many years as longline fishing vessels have been plying the seas around Hawai`i, they have been snagging albatrosses and other seabirds that go after the bait as the hooks are thrown.
For not quite as many years, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has been trying to reduce the numbers of birds that are killed or injured by the longline fishery. Estimates of those numbers range into the thousands annually – a level of mortality that most bird experts feel cannot be sustained by long-lived, slow-to-mature albatrosses. In 2000, the most recent year for which figures are available, more than 2,400 albatross perished as a result of interactions with the longline boats.
A simple device could change all that. In March, a longline fishing vessel, the 83-foot Katy Mary, went to sea outfitted with a narrow, 29-foot-long steel chute with a funnel-like opening and a slot running down its entire length. When the chute is mounted on the stern of the boat, hooks can be dropped into the chute and emerge 15 feet or more under the water’s surface, well out of the zone where following seabirds may be tempted to go for the squid or mackerel baits.
Nigel Brothers, a scientist from Hobart, Tasmania, who was instrumental in the development of the chute and other measures to protect seabirds, told Environment Hawai`i that in the 15-day sea trial, “we were unable to kill any birds with the chute,” and that was with 80 to 100 birds following the boat on some days.
“We achieved 100 percent effectiveness for the duration of the trial,” he said.
Alternative methods of deterring seabird interactions – including the use of blue-dyed bait and so-called “strategic offal discards” to lure the birds away from the line-setting area – did not come close to achieving the same result when they were employed.
The experiment with the chute was a joint effort, involving the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Western Pacific Council, the National Audubon Society’s Living Oceans Program, AlbiSave, the Australian company that manufactured the chute, Jim Cook and Sean Martin, the owners of the Katy Mary, and the Katy Mary’s crew, headed by captain Jerry Ray.
Cost of the Australian-made chute is modest: approximately $4,000, with another $1,000 in shipping costs to bring it to Hawai`i.
But the Western Pacific Council isn’t ready to make use of the chutes mandatory just yet. Further tests are being recommended. Cook says the design and deployment of the chute could be tweaked to make it easier to use. It might not need to be so long, and the funnel opening might be mounted lower on the stern to make it easier for crew to toss in the baited hooks. “We need another couple of test runs,” Cook said, before he would install it on his boats.
Last year, the National Marine Fisheries Council adopted emergency rules that were intended to reduce seabird deaths – and, more particularly, the death or injury of the very rare, and very endangered, short-tail albatross. Under these rules, vessels fishing north of 23¼ N (the area where seabirds are most common) are required to use thawed, blue-dyed bait (thawed bait sinks more quickly than frozen, and the blue-dyed bait appears to be less attractive to seabirds than non-dyed bait or bait colored with other dyes); dispose of offal discards in an effort to distract birds during the setting and hauling of gear; and use a line-setting machine and weighted branch lines whenever fishing. But fishing under the rules does not reduce seabird deaths entirely. “Without the chute, we were killing way too many birds,” Brothers says.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 12, Number 11 May 2002
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