{"id":7868,"date":"2015-04-01T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=7868"},"modified":"2019-11-05T19:36:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T19:36:21","slug":"stock-assessment-confirms-overfishing-of-parrotfish-in-the-main-hawaiian-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=7868","title":{"rendered":"Stock Assessment Confirms Overfishing of Parrotfish in the Main Hawaiian Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG025\"<\/a>There\u2019s an 89 percent chance that commercial fishermen in the Main Hawaiian Islands are catching uhu, commonly known as parrotfish, at an unsustainable rate. That\u2019s according to Cassandra Pardee, a Hawai`i Pacific University graduate student who has recently completed a stock assessment of the fish.<\/p>\n

Her work, funded in part by the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac), is aimed at helping the National Marine Fisheries Service produce a more accurate annual catch limit (ACL), which the agency requires for all managed fisheries.<\/p>\n

Last year, when setting the ACLs for the coming year, Wespac was presented with information that commercial catches in 2012 and 2013 vastly exceeded the Hawaii parrotfish ACL of 33,326 pounds. In 2012, the catch was 77,678 pounds and grew to 84,813pounds the following year.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s staff and its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) last June stated that the ACL exceedance was not a sign of overfishing, but was probably just the result of improved reporting following the state\u2019s implementation of a violation system that penalizes licensed commercial fishermen who fail to file catch reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we\u2019re victims of our own good advances in catch reporting in a more real-time basis,\u201dSSC chair Charles Daxboeck said at the time.<\/p>\n

Council staff also pointed out that the ACL was a first crack at setting an appropriate fishing limit and was set before the state had improved its reporting system.<\/p>\n

Pardee\u2019s assessment suggests that the ACL is, indeed, a little low. Using a model that included the catch records of just commercial spearfishers, she determined the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for parrotfish to be about 41,324 pounds, which is about 10,000 pounds more than the 2012 ACL. Usually, ACLs are set slightly lower than MSY, so the current ACL is off, but perhaps not by much.<\/p>\n

In any case, Pardee told the SSC last month, the overall population has decreased, but there is a 76 percent chance that parrotfish are not in an overfished state. However, between 2010 and 2012, there was a high probability that overfishing was occurring, she said. Overfishing happens when the catch rate exceeds the rate that produces MSY. The fact that catches have continued to increase suggests that overfishing continues.<\/p>\n

Pardee pointed out that her MSY calculation reflects only the exploitable biomass available to commercial fishers and does not reflect the entire population of parrotfish in the Hawaiian islands. Her model did not include recreational catch even though it likely exceeds commercial catch, she said.<\/p>\n

SSC member John Sibert, a fisheries scientist, said he\u2019s often wondered what would happen to stock assessments if modelers just doubled the catch to capture what the recreational fishermen might be doing.<\/p>\n

Pardee said that would raise the total biomass, but the population trend curve would still be about the same. Maximum sustainable yield would also increase, but since government agencies are only managing the commercial catch, the MSY would be so high it would seem unachievable, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo are we better off not knowing [the recreational catch]? I\u2019m serious,\u201dSibert said.<\/p>\n

Pardee replied that it would be beneficial to know what is happening in total if agencies are going to manage both commercial and recreational catch. The state, for example, has already adopted regulations over the past couple of years attempting to manage parrotfish catches \u2014both commercial and non-commercial \u2014in West Hawai`i, Maui, and Lana`i.<\/p>\n

Pardee noted that a spike in commercial parrotfish catches in recent years can be attributed to three spear-fishermen who, according to interviews, are night-fishing with SCUBA. SSC member Craig Severance added that there have been complaints in the Kona community that these top fishermen have been shipping out coolers of parrotfish.<\/p>\n

In response, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019Division of Aquatic Resources proposed a ban on spearfishing with SCUBA in waters off West Hawai`i. Over the objections of a number of commercial fishermen, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the ban in 2013.<\/p>\n

Last year, after years of failed attempts by state legislators to pass bills severely restricting or banning outright fishing for parrotfish around Maui, the Land Board narrowly adopted regulations  banning the take of certain species\/sizes of parrotfish, limiting the number of parrotfish that can be taken around Maui or Lana`i per day, and increasing the minimum size limit of those species that can be taken from 12 inches to 14 inches.<\/p>\n

Commercial fishermen opposed those regulations as well, and suggested instead a ban on night fishing.<\/p>\n

At the SSC meeting last month, chair Daxboeck noted that nighttime spear-fishing is restricted in French Polynesia, where he lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can pull out the parrotfish, check the size and put it on your spear [at night], where in the day, you may have to chase it down,\u201dhe said.<\/p>\n

He asked DAR\u2019s Alton Miyasaka, who often represents the state of Hawai`i on the council, whether the DLNR considered adopting a night-fishing ban.<\/p>\n

Miyasaka noted that the department had considered it. It had not, however, proposed such a ban to the Land Board.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy recollection was that the fishermen generally supported a night-spearing ban on uhu, but they felt it would shift the effort to the day fishery. Their argument is that you wouldn\u2019t see a decline in total catch. \u2026I disagree,\u201dMiyasaka said. \u201cYou would probably have a big change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should probably have more discussion,\u201dhe said.<\/p>\n

Pardee did not have a chance to present her findings to the full council last month, but she was one of the speakers during the council\u2019s Fishers\u2019 Forum \u2014held outside of the meeting \u2014on stock assessments. How her work will inform a new ACL for parrotfish remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

For Further Reading<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Past articles in Environment Hawai`i <\/i>have discussed parrotfish catches. They include:<\/p>\n