Each year, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council receives a report on the status of the pelagic fishery. This is prepared by council staff in conjunction with the Pelagic Plan Team. Catch data and other information necessary to assess the health of fish stocks are contained in the report, usually in charts that allow easy comparison of year-to-year fluctuations.
One of the most striking changes noted in the 1994 draft report on the pelagic fishery concerns swordfish landings. Overall swordfish landings amounted to 6.9 million pounds. With a total catch of 24.3 million pounds of pelagic fish, swordfish remained the predominant species caught. Still, the 1994 catch of swordfish was down by almost half (47 percent) from the 1993 catch of 13.5 million pounds. Indeed, the dramatic decline is the first downturn since swordfish began to be caught commercially in Hawai`i in the late 1980s.1
Bluer Waters?
Might that be an indication that the swordfish population is in decline? The draft report does not address this question directly. Instead, it refers to the departure of many vessels in the longline fleet in 1994. “Most of the vessels leaving originally came from the East Coast or U.S. Gulf of Mexico area. Some of the reasons mentioned for leaving Hawai`i were the high cost of operations and maintenance in Hawai`i, poor swordfish catch rates, anticipation of better fishing elsewhere, and to keep their longline permits active elsewhere in the U.S. There were 14 fewer vessels fishing in the fourth quarter of 1994” than there were in the same period a year earlier. “These changes would account for much of the decline in longline landings and revenue,” the report says.
According to Bob Enderson, a columnist for the Hawai`i Fishing News, several of the longline vessels needed drydock services, which are more cheaply done in the gulf area. Also, some swordfish vessels went to Fiji or to the western coast of South America, Enderson said.
Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service say the declining catches do not necessarily indicate a decline in the health of the fish stocks. They tend to attribute most of the loss to the departure of a significant portion of the swordfish fleet.
Still, the report states that “an analysis of the North Pacific swordfish fishery, discussing the declines in total catch and CPUE [catch per unit effort] in detail is needed. NMFS should prepare a special report on the fishery to be included with the 1995 report.”
Bluefin Spotted
“The Atlantic giant bluefin tuna,” writes Carl Safina, fisheries expert for the National Audubon Society, “reaches up to 1,500 pounds in weight and 30 years of age, and can cross the ocean on its migrations.” It “is one of the largest, fastest, and most magnificent creatures on earth.”
Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are also perhaps the most expensive fish in the ocean. With Japanese diners paying more than $350 a pound for its flesh, the wholesale price of a single fish can bring a fisherman more than $30,000. Overfishing of bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic Ocean caused the bluefin’s breeding population along the U.S. East Coast to decline more than 90 percent, Safina reports in “A Primer on Conserving Marine Resources” (National Audubon Society, 1992).
Pacific bluefin are just as magnificent as their Atlantic cousins, and, since 1993, they have been showing up in the catches of the Hawai`i-based longline fleet. In 1994, “a noteworthy landing of 40,000 pounds ($330,000) of bluefin tuna was made for the first time,” the draft pelagic fishery report states. The fish appear to have been caught by longliners “as they fished increasingly further north of Hawai`i.”
1. For details on the rise of the swordfish fishery in Hawai`i, see “[url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=1275_0_30_0_C]In Half a Decade, a Revolution In Hawai’i-Based Longline Fishery[/url],” Environment Hawai`i, April 1994.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 6, Number 4 October 1995
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