Last month’s meeting of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, an agency of the federal government that has no other source of funds than the U.S. taxpayer, began this way:
William Sword, a council member from American Samoa and chair of the council, opened the meeting with a lengthy prayer to the Christian god, asking for his guidance and help in the coming days.
Shaelene Kamakaʻala, a council member from Hawaiʻi who receives payment for each day she participates in council meetings, read a statement acknowledging the cultural history of the place (Honolulu) where the meeting was being held and describing Hawaiʻi as being “illegally occupied” by the United States government.
Kitty Simonds, long-time (48-year) executive director of the council, reported the receipt of a $1.7 million grant under the Inflation Reduction Act, to be used for studying the impacts of climate change on fisheries and fishing communities in the region.
And with that, the 200th meeting of the council was off and running.
False Killer Whales
Hawaiian false killer whales. Credit: NOAA
For years, the Hawaiʻi-based deep-set longline fleet has carried observers on around 20 percent of all boats engaged in fishing at any given time. The observers are there to report on interactions with protected species, especially false killer whales.
Reports from observers are used to estimate how many false killer whales the fleet interacts with. With one-fifth – 20 percent – of the fleet’s activity observed, the number of reported interactions is multiplied by five to arrive at an annual estimate of the total number of interactions. This estimate is then used to assess whether the fleet is approaching or has exceeded the number of interactions with animals belonging to the pelagic false killer whale population allowed under the take limits set by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
In 2024, however, the percentage of vessels carrying observers has fallen to 13 percent. And for 2025, NMFS announced on September 20, the rate will be just 7 percent.
The change, NMFS said, was being made “because the cost of the observer program continues to increase, and we anticipate 2025 funding will be insufficient to support the 2024 coverage rate in the Hawaiʻi deep-set longline fishery.”
By reducing coverage, NMFS said, it will be able to maintain coverage rates of 100 percent in the shallow-set fishery (targeting swordfish) and of 10 percent in the American Samoa longline fishery.
As the level of observer coverage drops, so, too, does the number of incidents of mortality or serious injury (M/SI) that the fleet is allowed before a large swath of fishing grounds south of the Main Hawaiian Islands is closed off. For the 13 percent level, the trigger value for closure of the Southern Exclusion Zone was set at 3 M/SI takes. NMFS has not yet announced a trigger value for SEZ closure at the 7 percent observer coverage rate, but unless there is some dramatic upward shift in the estimated population of the pelagic population of false killer whales, it is likely that the trigger value will be 1 or 2 takes per year, or possibly three takes over two years.
In July, four conservation groups sent a letter to NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office to express their concerns over the apparently increasing take of false killer whales by the longline fleet. Maxx Phillips of the Hawaiʻi office of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups, told Environment Hawaiʻi that the response to date has been “crickets.”
“The law says the agency has to do more to protect these marine mammals, but it’s not doing that, and officials aren’t even acknowledging the problem to us,” Phillips said. The Marine Mammal Protection Act, she added, “requires monitoring and specifies that the monitoring must obtain statistically reliable estimates of incidental mortality and serious injury. There’s no express minimum, but 7 percent is woefully inadequate.
“Meanwhile, false killer whales continue to suffer and die in terrible ways, and the numbers show things need to change.”
Conservation groups aren’t the only ones concerned about the low rate of observer coverage. At the recent meeting of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Longline Association, voiced his dissatisfaction with the move, which “complicates everything,” he said. “We need to focus on increasing observer coverage,” since the reductions “just increase the uncertainties.”
“You won’t find many fisheries pushing for more observer coverage, but we are,” he said.
So far this year, NMFS reports two takes of false killer whales by the deep-set longline fishery. As of late September, no determination had been made as to the level of injury the animals sustained.
(For a fuller discussion of the take of pelagic false killer whales, see the article in the April 2024 edition of Environment Hawaiʻi, “NMFS Approves Management Area Beyond EEZ for Pelagic False Killer Whale Population.” For details of the letter to NMFS, see the August edition, “Increased Takes of Pelagic False Killer Whales Prompt Conservation Groups to Warn NMFS.”)
Tori Line Tests, Part II
Last year, the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council changed its rules regarding the deep-set longline fishery to allow vessels to use tori lines as a method to deter interactions with albatrosses. The tori lines, consisting of long poles with streamers that are placed near the fishing lines as they are set out, are thought to interfere with the ability of albatross to see and snatch bait from the hooks.
Tests of the tori lines deployed on vessels in the deep-set fishery, which targets tuna, showed their effectiveness. Earlier this year, the council sponsored tests of the tori lines used on longline vessels targeting swordfish, which are caught at much shallower depths.
Existing rules require that the baited lines are set at dusk or at night and that the bait is dyed blue, to make it less visible to birds. Fishers have complained that dying the bait is a bother. In addition, time restrictions on setting lines reduce “operational flexibility” of the shallow-set fleet.
But results of the tests conducted between February and April were conclusive. According to a write-up of the results released in August, the tori lines were not “an effective seabird bycatch mitigation measure in this trial compared to the use of night-setting with blue-dyed fish bait.”
“Albatrosses were [about] 37.6 times … more likely to be captured when paired tori-lines were deployed compared to the night-sets (with blue-dyed fish bait).
“Albatrosses were [more than] 1000 times … more likely to contact a baited hook when paired tori-lines were deployed compared to the night-sets (with blue-died fish bait).
“Albatrosses were [more than] 3000 times more likely to attempt to contact a baited hook when paired tori-lines were deployed compared to the night-sets (with blue-dyed fish bait).”
One reason for the dramatic difference in effectiveness of the tori lines on deep-set vs. shallow-set vessels suggested by the study is the different locations the fisheries operate in. The shallow-set fishery, the study says, “operates at higher latitudes than the deep-set tuna longline fishery and is generally subject to higher wind conditions, which we found can increase seabird bycatch risk – perhaps because seabirds are more agile and able to access baited hooks during stronger wind conditions, or because tori-lines are less likely to be maintained adequately over the set-deployment footprint where baited hooks are vulnerable to scavenging seabirds”
While tori lines may be of little value in the swordfish fishery, there was general agreement at the recent Wespac meeting that the requirement to use blue-dyed bait also was not helpful – and was actually a nuisance, inasmuch as it required crew members to dye bait instead of helping out with other duties. The council voted to support experimental fishing trials to determine the effectiveness of blue-dyed bait.
What’s in a Name?
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument has a descriptive name. But last year, President Biden signed a memorandum that, among other things, called on the secretaries of Interior and Commerce to select a new name for the monument, in collaboration with “Indigenous language experts, Native Hawaiian organizations, and other representatives from Indigenous Peoples with ancestral, historical, and cultural connections to the area.”
Malia Chow, branch chief of the Habitat Conservation Division of the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office, described the process of deciding on a new name at the meeting last month of the Fishing Rights of Indigenous Fisheries Standing Committee of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.
The John McCain National Center for Environmental Conflict Resolution, a part of the Udall Foundation, a nonpartisan agency of the Executive Branch of government, surveyed a number of groups and individuals from cultures throughout the Pacific. Its report noted that “Most participants felt generally negative about the current name.”
“While some individuals thought Hawaiian names could be appropriate for the Monument or the islands and ocean areas in and adjacent to the Monument, a few cautioned against using Hawaiian since most of the Monument lies within Micronesia,” the Udall Foundation report stated. “These participants felt that Micronesian perspectives are often not valued or even excluded by the U.S. Government.”
Following that, at the FestPAC (Festival of the Pacific Arts and Culture) held in June in Honolulu, Narrissa Spies, a conservation planner with the Fish and Wildlife Service, gave a presentation on the renaming project to participants. Chow and others interviewed Pacific Islanders to obtain their thoughts.
The conclusion was that the word “Remote” should be excluded, since it’s not really remote from many of the Pacific Island cultures. Also, “choosing one indigenous language over others” could be harmful. Most important, perhaps, was the overall consensus that since the monument is a construct of the U.S. Government, it should have an English name.
The final recommended name, Chow said, is “Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.”
Cultural Take Of Green Sea Turtles
For decades, Simonds and other council members have been trying to find some way to allow for the cultural take of honu, or green sea turtles – a species that enjoys protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Last month, in the meeting of the Fishing Rights of Indigenous People Standing Committee, Simonds hinted that at the full council meeting, the national sea turtle coordinator from the NMFS would be making a presentation on the topic. “In particular,” she added, “it’s our understanding that there’s now renewed interest in captive rearing of green sea turtles.”
But a few days later, when NMFS turtle coordinator Stacy Hargrove made her presentation, she was anything but encouraging when it came to the prospect of raising sea turtles in captivity.
What’s most important is the survival of subadults and adults, Hargrove said, discounting the effectiveness of nurseries or headstarting, which focuses on the survival of hatchlings. “A small decrease in the survival of older turtles can quickly overcome any potential benefits of headstarting,” she said, citing a study on the subject published in 1996 (“Models to Evaluate Headstarting as a Management Tool for Long-Lived Turtles,” by Heppel et al, in Ecological Applications). With just one in 1,000 hatchlings surviving the 30 years it takes to reach sexual maturity, focusing on the first year of a turtle’s life is unlikely to be effective, she noted.
Hargrove mentioned the several captive-rearing projects that had been undertaken for green, loggerhead, and Kemp’s Ridley turtles elsewhere. Then she listed some of the drawbacks. Such projects fail to address the threats the species face in the wild. They can have negative environmental impacts, including the generation of large quantities of wastewater. They can foster disease, aggression, and even cannibalism among the captive animals. They are costly and distracting – and, in the end, there is “very low survival to reproductive age, and decades for any potential benefits to be realized.”
Finally, she pointed out that the Endangered Species Act calls for captive rearing to be “used as a recovery strategy only when other measures employed to maintain or improve a listed species’ status in the wild have failed, are determined to be likely to fail, are shown to be ineffective in overcoming extant factors limiting recovery or would be insufficient to achieve full recovery.”
The council continues to seek ways to circumvent treaty obligations with Latin American countries, designed to protect sea turtles, and federal regulations. On the last day of its meeting, the council voted to have staff “request a presentation from the proper resource people on the process and impacts of federally recognized tribes for potential recognition of the indigenous peoples of the U.S. Pacific Islands to address exclusion of these peoples from federal regulations, among other potential options.”
The motion confused some of those present, who wanted to know if the problem to be addressed was the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from federal programs, as the language of the motion could be read to say. That misunderstanding was quickly dealt with, as one of the council members explained, frankly, that the purpose was to allow the cultural harvest of sea turtles.
— Patricia Tummons
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