The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has approved changes to its rules for lobster fishing that run smack against the state’s rules for fishing lobsters in waters under Hawai`i territorial jurisdiction. The changes may make sense for the harvesting of lobsters in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where the lobster fishery is under federal jurisdiction, but for the waters around the Main Hawaiian Islands, the new rules would have little benefit, experts say. In addition, enforcement agents with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources fear that their duties will become all but impossible should state and federal rules differ so dramatically.
Background
For years, commercial fishing of spiny and slipper lobsters in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has been an on-again, off-again proposition. In the 1980s, about 1.5 million lobsters were taken from the area each year. By 1993, however, apparently dwindling stocks prompted a ban on all lobster fishing that year by the federal Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which has jurisdiction over fishing in the area.
In 1994, the season opened in July, but again was closed after barely a month, when data coming in from fishing vessels caused estimates of the lobster population to be revised downward. In 1995, the season was closed except for one vessel that engaged in a closely monitored program of experimental fishing under which no more than about 40,000 lobsters were to be taken.
In light of these ups and downs, the council called for a reassessment of the way in which the health of the lobster fishery was measured and the procedures for setting quotas. The existing system, put in place in 1992 following years of little protection of the lobster stocks, was achieving the goal of protecting the lobsters, but at the cost of the fishermen, council members held.
Researchers at the National Marine Fisheries Service laboratory in Honolulu began working on these tasks and by the time the council met in August 1995, they were able to present their results and recommendations.
Take All
Up to now, lobster harvests have been guided by two main precepts. First, under no circumstances were “berried” female lobsters — a term referring to egg-bearing animals — to be kept and marketed. Second, under no circumstances were undersize lobsters to be kept and marketed. The ideas behind these guidelines are not hard to understand. The berried females, when returned to the ocean, would help repopulate lobster stocks diminished by fishing. Similarly, by throwing back undersized lobsters — lobsters below the size where most lobsters are thought to be sexually mature — the fishermen would allow juveniles to attain maturity and make their own contribution to stock repopulation before being caught.
Those two hoary principles have been turned on their heads.
At its meeting in August, WesPac approved what, technically, is an amendment to its Crustacean Fishery Management Plan. Now, in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, lobster fishermen will be operating under a “take-all” approach. Any lobster trapped is to be retained. The only exception to this is for lobsters that are small enough to escape on their own through the mandatory 2 5/8″ vents in the lobster traps.
Scientists recommended the changes to the council on the basis of computer simulations as well as observed experience. Lobsters that were discarded in the past were frequently injured even before being tossed back into the water. For example, lobsters can be blinded in as few as 10 or 15 minutes of exposure to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Also, a decked lobster waiting to be graded can become injured when held in close proximity to other lobsters.
Lobsters returned to the water frequently, if not always, are eaten by predators. Giant ulua, for example, often follow alongside lobster boats, waiting for the discards. According to Timm Timmoney, a former council member and one of the lobster fishermen holding a permit to enter the Northwestern Islands’ lobster fishery, up to 100 percent of the discards are taken by ulua, which are not fished in the Northwestern Islands.
A further factor in the probable high mortality of discarded lobsters is the distance traveled by the lobster boats between the time the lobsters are caught and the time they are discarded. Often, by the time lobsters are thrown back, the boat will have left the short coastal shelf around the Northwestern Islands and will be in water where the bottom is too deep for the lobsters to dwell.
Less Impact
In short, the number of lobsters killed in a given season under the old rules included not only those the fishermen retained (the only ones whose take counted against the annual catch quota), but also a fair number of those that were discarded in the name of keeping the lobsters’ reproductive stock healthy. According to one NMFS researcher, Jeff Polovina, juvenile and berried lobsters account now for about half the lobsters trapped.
When NMFS scientists performed computer simulations of the effect of the practice of discarding berried and juvenile lobsters on the long-term health of the lobster population, they found that no matter how low or high the mortality of the discarded lobsters was assumed to be, in nearly every scenario, the take-all approach had less impact on the reproductive health of lobster stocks than the practice of discarding berried lobsters, juvenile lobsters, or both.
So, following the recommendation of the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, members of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council voted to approve the change. Because the council’s Crustacean Management Plan (of which the lobster fishery regulations are a part) is a federal rule, the National Marine Fisheries Service is now going through the elaborate rule-making process so that the take-all approach will be in place in time for next year’s lobster season in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Dueling Rules
State law (Section 188-58) prohibits the possession of berried female lobsters. State rules (Title 13, Chapter 89) establish size limits for juveniles. No exceptions are made for lobsters caught in the Northwestern Islands, which are, after all, still part of the state.
What this means for the lobster fishery is not clear, but, should vessels allowed to participate in the Northwestern Islands’ lobster fishery desire to unload their catch in Honolulu (for sale there or for transshipment elsewhere), they might well find themselves facing citations from state enforcement agents.
This conflict was brought to the council’s attention by a representative of the state DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources attending the meeting. No one on the council took up the matter, however, despite the presence of council Vice Chairman William Paty, who from 1987 to 1992 was head of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. (In fact, Paty served as chairman of the council’s Crustaceans Standing Committee, which recommended the change be approved.)
Gary Moniz is the acting administrator of the DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement, whose responsibilities include enforcement of fishing regulations. Moniz told Environment Hawai`i in a recent interview that he had “made it clear to the council that the take-all policy is contrary to state law and that we would prosecute violators.”
“We’re not bound by what they do,” he said.
In addition, Moniz expressed concern about what would happen if local fishermen began to think that because the take-all approach might work in the Northwestern Islands, it would work in local waters, too. “I don’t want them to get the misconception that it’s okay here to take sublegals and berried females” — an idea that they might easily pick up without a clear understanding of the conditions that justify the approach scientifically in the Northwestern Islands, while making it inappropriate in waters closer to home.
But to Moniz, “the big question is scientific.” While deferring to scientists with the state DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources and at NMFS, Moniz still questioned whether sufficient thought had been given by the council to modifying fishing techniques so that juveniles and berried females might be returned to the ocean floor without risk of predation. As an example, Moniz said fishermen might be able to release lobsters back to the water in a bag that is not opened until it hits the ocean floor.
Irreconcilable Differences
If the state were to change its rules to conform to those of the federal council, the regulatory headache might be solved, but other, even more difficult, problems would likely supplant it.
Vast differences exist between the management of lobster stocks in the coastal waters around the Main Hawaiian Islands, under the control of the state of Hawai`i, and in the waters of the Northwestern Islands, under WesPac’s control.
The Northwestern Islands’ fishery is under the council’s tight control. Entry is restricted to a small number of vessels (at the moment, there are just six). The season is closed at least six months of the year and opened only so long as it takes vessels holding permits to catch the quota of lobsters allowed in a given year.
In the Main Hawaiian Islands, the season is closed from May to August, the months when most spawning is thought to occur. The taking of undersize animals or berried females is banned, but there are no restrictions or limits on who may catch lobsters.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 6, Number 5 November 1995
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