At its March meeting, the council threatened to complain to NOAA brass that Mike Tosatto, director of NMFS\u2019 Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO), might not be the best man for the job if his office did not complete by the council\u2019s June meeting consultations for U.S. fisheries in the Pacific that interact with oceanic whitetip sharks. The species was federally listed as threatened last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earthjustice, on behalf of the Conservation Council for Hawai\u2018i and Kona resident Mike Nakachi, had earlier this year sent to Tosatto\u2019s office a notice of intent to sue over the agency\u2019s failure to complete the consultations in accordance with the timeline set forth in the Endangered Species Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the council met in June, some of the consultations still weren\u2019t finished. Instead of following through on its threat against Tosatto, however, the council voted to simply direct its staff to meet with PIRO\u2019s Sustainable Fisheries Division staff after each council meeting to \u201creview actions, develop timelines, set priorities, and agree to plans to complete tasks.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStaff and I can figure it out … so you\nand I have nothing to do with it,\u201d council\nexecutive director Kitty Simonds told\nTosatto.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council also recommended that\nPIRO complete the consultations for the\nHawai\u2018i deep-set longline and American\nSamoa longline fisheries by September\n1, and the one for the U.S. tropical purse\nseine fishery by October 1, in accordance\nwith the office\u2019s own projections.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the council directed its staff\nto keep NOAA assistant administrator\nfor fisheries Chris Oliver apprised of the\nconsultation status and asked that Oliver\n\u201ccontinue to provide oversight to ensure\nexpeditious completion of high quality\nconsultations.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact that the consultations were\nstill not complete \u201cput the region\u2019s largest\ndomestic commercial fisheries at risk of\nlitigation,\u201d the council stated.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On June 26, NMFS did complete its consultation for the Hawai\u2018i shallow-set longline fishery. The agency\u2019s biological opinion (BiOp) and incidental take statement says that the fishery would likely catch 102 oceanic whitetip sharks in a given year, killing 32 of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No annual caps were set on the number of animals that could be taken by the fishery, but the statement requires NMFS\u2019s Sustainable Fisheries Division to develop measures (i.e., trip limits or limits on the number of sharks that can be taken before a vessel is required to fish elsewhere) to reduce the bycatch and increase survivability of the sharks, as well as giant manta rays, which are also federally listed as threatened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BiOp states that NMFS expects climate change will pose a minimal threat to the sharks, since they can adapt to habitat modifications and shifts in ocean currents, temperatures, and food web dynamics \u201cby transiting to areas favorable to their biological and ecological needs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That conclusion doesn\u2019t exactly jibe with a recent rapid vulnerability assessment of marine species throughout the Pacific. That more recent work determined that oceanic whitetip sharks were highly vulnerable to climate change effects that will occur in the next few decades. Lower surface oxygen, high sea surface temperature, and ocean acidification were the three factors that had the most impact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014Teresa Dawson <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At its March meeting, the council threatened to complain to NOAA brass that Mike Tosatto, director of NMFS’ Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO), might not be the best man for the job if his office did not complete by the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-11666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2019","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666","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=11666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}