The Hawai\u2018i shallow-set longline fishery\nhas struggled lately to slow its catches\nof endangered loggerhead sea turtles. As a\nresult, it was shut down on March 19, after\nhitting its annual limit of 17 takes.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This comes a year after a federal court order reduced the take limit from 34 to 17 and forced the fishery \u2014 which targets swordfish \u2014 to close in May while the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) completed a new biological opinion on the fleet\u2019s impacts on loggerhead and leatherback turtles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fishery had caught 33 loggerheads\nbefore being shut down last year.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NMFS was expected to release a draft\nbiological opinion last October, but that\ndeadline was pushed to January, then later\nto late-March. As of press time, it still had\nnot been issued, despite a final opinion\nbeing slated for completion by the end of\nthis month.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biological Opinion (BiOp) Review Advisory Panel, a subset of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council\u2019s Scientific and Statistical Committee, will meet on April 12 to consider the new draft biological opinion, with the full council meeting later that afternoon by teleconference to prepare its recommendations to NMFS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The population modeling studies of T.\nTodd Jones of the Pacific Islands Fisheries\nScience Center play a key role in the BiOp.\nJones\u2019 modeling predicts that the North\nPacific loggerhead population will increase\nvery slightly over time, while the leatherback\npopulation will decrease. Currently, the\nannual cap for leatherbacks is 26.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NMFS staff has estimated that the fishery\nwill likely interact with up to 37 loggerheads\nand 21 leatherbacks a year, but it\u2019s unclear\nhow NMFS will factor in those projected\ntake levels in setting the new hard caps.\nLast year, the council proposed that NMFS\nsimply set the caps at the estimated take\nlevels without regard to the impact their\nremoval from the turtle populations would\nhave on the species\u2019 ability to recover, or\neven survive.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the rate at which the fishery caught\nloggerheads last year was much higher than\nit has been this year, the fleet this year was\ncatching, on average, about 1.5 of them a\nweek. At that rate, the fishery would still\nhave closed about the same time it did last\nyear, perhaps a few weeks later, had the\nloggerhead cap been increased to 37.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the council\u2019s meeting last month,\nmember Mike Goto lamented the effects\nthis year\u2019s closure has had and will have on\nthe fishery.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many vessels within the fleet didn\u2019t have\na chance to set gear, he said, and crews that\nwere flown in for this fishery have had to\nreturn to port and switch gear so they can\npursue bigeye tuna.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While nobody is losing their job because of the closure, Goto said the fishers are losing time. Russell Ito of the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center told the council\u2019s Scientific and Statistical Committee that the fishery had also invested in supplies, such as light sticks and expensive bait, to catch swordfish. Ito also noted that it\u2019s a marketing nightmare for the fish auction, which Goto manages, with all of the fleet\u2019s swordfish coming into port at once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s more, Goto told the council, the\nmarket is losing product.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s throwing everything back into a chaotic ball, whether it\u2019s an area closure or fishery closure,\u201d he said, alluding to the closure earlier this year of a large portion of the deep-set longline fleet\u2019s fishing ground due to interactions with false killer whales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goto later read to the council testimony\nfrom Roger Dang, whose family owns\nmore than 20 fishing vessels. Dang had\nwritten it while attending a Seafood Show\nin Boston and stated that he was testifying\n\u201con behalf of the entire community of\nHawai\u2019i\u2019s swordfish fleet and others in the\nfishing industry, including fish buyers and\nwholesalers, fishing gear and bait suppliers,\nand logistics companies.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dang called the recently announced swordfish fishery closure \u201chighly untimely and unfortunate,\u201d especially given that they had spent the last several months working with some of the largest swordfish buyers in the country to \u201cdevelop a buying and shipping program to support the US\/Hawai\u2018i swordfish fishery.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese buyers initially expressed concerns on the reliability and continuity of supply because of the hard cap being reached in 2018. Still, they committed since the start of the 2019 season and, just as recently as yesterday, agreed to decrease their reliance on foreign imported swordfish and increase their purchases of Hawai\u2018i swordfish,\u201d Dang continued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe lengthy delay of a biological opinion was critical for us, and we feel the agency has failed us greatly. This has directly caused our mainland U.S. partners to lose confidence in our ability to sustain production, and I fear that they will continue to discount Hawai\u2018i as a reliable source of swordfish going into the future,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Council member McGrew Rice asked\nMike Tosatto, administrator for NMFS\u2019s\nPacific Islands Regional Office, how quickly\nthe fishery could be opened once the new\nbiological opinion is completed, noting\nthat the fall is a good time of year to catch\nswordfish.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tosatto did not give a specific date, explaining that he was trying not to get too far ahead of \u201call the \u2018what ifs.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whenever the opinion is completed,\n\u201cthe market is obviously going to take a\nhit,\u201d Goto said, adding that the Hawai\u2018i\nfleet provides at least half of the country\u2019s\ndomestic swordfish. \u201cThis is a very desired\nfishery. … It\u2019s crucial we gain the support\nof all parties otherwise we\u2019re looking at\nthe dissolution of the shallow-set fishery,\u201d\nhe said.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Council member Christinna Lutu-Sanchez asked Tosatto whether his agency needed more staff to complete biological opinions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe broadest answer is yes,\u201d he replied.\nHe explained that NMFS has long lacked\nadequate capacity nationwide to process\nconsultations. Consultation hotspots have\nrotated around the country and at times, the\nnumber of outstanding consultations have\nnumbered in the hundreds, he said.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe administration has asked for more resources. Congress didn\u2019t respond to that in exactly the same way. We do expect a modest increase in consultation resources in the regional office. Our science center received no commensurate increases … to meet the scientific needs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that external factors, including unfortunate time lags to \u201cdot Is and cross Ts,\u201d contribute to delays in the consultation process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elena Onaga with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Office of General Counsel said her office has also been asking for additional staff, but is still able to complete legal reviews fairly quickly and accurately. However, she added, \u201cThe scrutiny [required so] that we have a defensible document, that we will not lose on, takes a little more time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Teresa Dawson <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Hawai‘i shallow-set longline fishery has struggled lately to slow its catches of endangered loggerhead sea turtles. As a result, it was shut down on March 19, after hitting its annual limit of 17 takes. This comes a year after … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[452],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-11136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2019","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}