Hawaii Archives - Page 4 of 58

Feds sued to protect endangered turtles, whales, sharks from fishing lines

February 24, 2023 — The Conservation Council for Hawaii sued National Marine Fisheries Service fisheries in Hawaii and American Samoa for delaying consultations meant to ensure the fisheries are properly managing incidental catch species including several endangered sea turtle, whale and shark species.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Conservation Council and Michael Nakachi, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner, claim the longline fisheries have been exceeding their incidental take limits for nearly nine years in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The fisheries’ longline fishing gear, mileslong mainlines with baited hooks extending vertically into the water, primarily targets tuna but has no way to exclude nontarget marine animals, luring in and eventually killing hundreds of species including endangered ones.

“By failing to complete the consultations, NMFS is failing to ensure that these fisheries do not jeopardize the continued existence of these species or destroy or adversely modify their critical habitat, in violation of ESA Section 7 and its implementing regulations,” the plaintiffs say in the complaint.

Earthjustice, on behalf of the Conservation Council, first initiated action against the agency in May 2022, asking for consultations and reports to be done on oceanic whitetip sharks, which had been recently designated by the Endangered Species Act and did not have previously established take limits. All parties stipulated to a voluntary dismissal after the fisheries service promised to complete the consultations, which it submitted in September. The plaintiffs say this wasn’t enough.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Public helps NOAA track turtles around Maui

February 14, 2023 — A turtle known as MA100 has commonly been seen around Kaanapali since 2021. Another known as MA101 is commonly seen around Kihei but was first sighted at Maalaea Bay in 2021.

They’re among the many honu that scientists have been able to track around Maui thanks to the help of citizen scientists who report sightings of the Hawaiian green sea turtles based on special etchings on their shell.

The data collected through the citizen science-driven Honu County project helps staff with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries better understand foraging habitats, migration, distribution and the survival status of particular honu across Hawaii.

NOAA recently launched a new online tool to make it easier for folks in the Maui community and statewide to report sightings.

Since the inception of the Honu Count in 2017, nearly 600 people reported 688 sightings of 253 individual turtles. It’s a way for the public to engage in sea turtle research and conservation, according to NOAA.

Read the full article at Maui News

HAWAII: Have you tried the other (other) white meat? … Swordfish

February 13, 2023 — Hawaii’s commercial fishing industry is asking Hawaii families to consider (or reconsider) a fish that’s fallen out of favor over the years.

While Hawaii is known for its ahi and other tuna, swordfish is actually a big part of the commercial fishing industry in the islands. So much so that the Hawaii Longline Association says its fleet provides about half the country’s demand for swordfish — caught more than 1,000 miles north of Hawaii.

Read the full article at Hawaii News Now

What’s the solution to ghost fishing gear polluting oceans?

January 31, 2023 — Industrial fishing has been in hot water with the public for the last few years, with popular documentaries and exposés pointing out the devastating impacts of poor stewardship on the ocean. This outrage isn’t unfounded: In addition to their role in overfishing, industrial fishing fleets leave a huge amount of waste in the ocean, including damaged or lost fishing gear that boats leave behind in their rush to fish. The lost gear clutters the oceans, making them less hospitable to life, and more problematic for other fishermen to use. This so-called “ghost gear” can be found anywhere that fishing boats operate and can drift to other areas. In places where spiraling currents push debris together, it is especially prevalent. Between Hawai’i and California, in a stretch of water known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, much of the metric tonnage of plastic is comprised of ghost fishing gear. But it doesn’t have to be this way; there are potential solutions that could dramatically reduce the amount of abandoned gear in the oceans, keeping plastic out of food webs and reducing the overall burden of the fishing industry on marine pollution.

New research estimates that nearly 2% of all fishing gear is lost annually. This might not sound like much, but it adds up to 25 million pots and traps, along with 78,000 square kilometers of nets. This gear poses a serious threat to ocean wildlife, which get entangled in gear or consume plastic pieces as gear breaks down. Meanwhile, broken-down plastic eventually becomes tiny microplastic particles, which are increasingly ubiquitous in marine food chains and cause serious health issues for fish and other wildlife, as well as potential harm to the people who eat them.

That gear also has a direct human cost, especially for smaller fishermen who are trying to be good stewards of the ocean: For small boats, ghost gear can affect vessels’ propulsion and ability to maneuver, ultimately making sustainable fishing even more difficult. Jon Russell, Food Justice Organizer at the North American Marine Alliance (NAMA), maintains that gear losses are less common when fishermen are careful, and says that in smaller fishing communities, there’s still a sense of pride in doing things the right way. While larger operations can afford to bear the brunt of gear losses financially and operationally, smaller fishers often can’t. But these small fishing communities are still impacted when commercial fleets set their traps down haphazardly. “Then it creates this culture: ‘Well, if they’re not going to do it right, we’re not going to do it right’ and it just gets really toxic really fast,” he says.

When gear is left on the fishing ground by larger boats, it can severely impact the daily routine of other fishermen, particularly smaller operations. “If it’s going to interfere with our daily routine, we cannot maximize our catch,” says Captain Charlie Abner, who is a small boat fisherman and shrimper in the Southeast U.S. “You lose a whole day of fishing because you’ve got to redo your rigs. You’ve got to untangle this, you’ve got to untangle that. So, it’s not easy.”

Read the full article at Salon

HAWAII: Commercial fishermen offered ‘bounty’ to clean up ocean

January 11, 2023 — Those who make their living out on the open ocean now have the opportunity to partake in a side hustle that simultaneously tidies up the environment.

Commercial fishermen have been offered a “bounty” to collect derelict fishing gear, often the culprit of the death of marine animals, and bring the debris back to shore.

Hawaii Pacific University’s Center for Marine Debris Research has launched a project to pay eligible commercial fishers to remove fishing gear at sea before it strikes Hawaii’s coral reefs or wildlife, according to a press release from the university.

The fishermen will be paid a bounty of between $1 and $3 per dry pound of derelict fishing gear found at sea and brought back to Oahu, the research center said.

The research center first tested the program between 2020 and 2021, when researchers trying to determine where the fishing gear was coming from paid fishermen who were already fishing near the northwest Hawaiian islands, the main Hawaiian islands and the North Pacific gyre a bounty to collect the debris and bring it back, Raquel Corniuk, research manager for Hawaii Pacific University’s Center for Marine Debris Research, told ABC News.

Read the full article at abc7NY

HPU project aims to remove derelict fishing gear from the ocean

January 10, 2023 — Hawaii Pacific University’s Center for Marine Debris Research has launched a project to remove derelict fishing gear from the ocean. The goal is to remove 220,462 pounds of derelict fishing gear from the ocean over a two-year period.

The HPU project is a partnership with the Hawaii Longline Association and the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources with partial funding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program Removal Grant.

Lost and abandoned fishing gear, including ghost nets, make up derelict fishing gear that eventually reach Hawaii’s beaches. But before doing so, ocean currents tangle up the gear into large masses that entangle and drown marine animals, and smother and kill Hawaii’s reefs as they make their way to the shoreline. DFG is one of the most harmful types of marine debris to marine animals and ecosystems.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

Pacific Nations Are Bracing To Lose Tons Of Tuna From Their Waters

December 14, 2022 — Pacific leaders are developing a new warning system, not against hurricanes, tsunamis or even erupting volcanoes but rather the looming departure of vital tuna from their territorial waters in the years to come.

That so-called “advanced warning system” is part of a larger, $70 million proposal currently moving through the United Nations to help Pacific Island countries better react to the changing global climate. Their communities are already bearing much of the brunt of that crisis even though they’re among those least responsible for it.

Now, 14 of those Pacific nations aim to better understand the full extent of the upheaval that they’ll face as climate change pushes significant masses of tuna out of their waters and farther east. Most depend heavily on fishing access fees, paid by foreign purse seine fleets, in order to sustain their economies.

Read the full article at Civil Beat

HAWAII: Native Hawaiian fishing permit approved for Papahanaumokuakea

December 12, 2022 — New regulations for federal waters surrounding Papahanaumo kuakea, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, were voted on last week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which oversees fisheries in Hawaii waters and the U.S. Pacific Islands.

A noncommercial and subsistence fishing permitting system has been recommended for federal waters surrounding the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in a move to encourage Native Hawaiian cultural practices, and it will come with the ability for fishers to recoup up to $15, 000 per subsistence fishing trip.

New regulations for federal waters surrounding Papahanaumo kuakea, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, were voted on last week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which oversees fisheries in Hawaii waters and the U.S. Pacific Islands. After approval by the secretary of commerce, council recommendations are implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

While Papahanaumokuakea encompasses 582, 578 square miles of the Pacific Ocean—an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined—the noncommercial and subsistence fishing zone outside of the monument would be allowed from 50 to 200 nautical miles in expansion areas around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Read the full article at Yahoo News

HAWAII: The Honolulu Fish Auction Celebrates Its 70th Anniversary

November 29, 2022 — Commercial fishing in Hawai’i was banned during World War II and slowly resurfaced by the early 1950s. The United Fishing Agency launched the Honolulu Fish Auction on Aug. 5, 1952, and it celebrated its 70th anniversary this year at Honolulu’s Pier 38.

The agency says it’s the only fish auction in Hawai‘i and the only large-scale tuna auction in the Pacific this side of Tokyo. Michael Goto, who has been running the auction for a decade, says seafood is a much bigger industry in Hawai‘i than many people might realize.

“The whole business has been over-looked over the years,” Goto says. “It is the number one food-producing industry in the entire state of Hawai‘i. No one else comes close to this industry as far as food production.”

Sales from Hawai‘i’s longline fishing boats are worth between $100 million and $120 million a year at the ports before the fish hit the wholesale and retail sectors and gets marked up, he says.

He says more than 90% of people in the state consume seafood regularly and seafood is a big draw for tourists too. “Tourists come to Hawai‘i not to eat chicken or beef, but what we’re known for: fish,” he says.

Read the full article at Hawaii Business

Helping Hawaii: Non-profit removes 200,000 pounds of debris from Pacific

November 17, 2022 — Marine debris is an accumulating problem for Hawaiian wildlife at 57 tons per year, so one non-profit group is working to give their water and wildlife the best chance for long-term survival.

“Anything from motorcycle helmets to car bumpers to baseball bats and recently a lot of Wilson volleyballs is, believe it or not, due to a container spill that happened near Hawaii,” Kevin O’Brien told FOX Weather Monday. “And this time, we actually found a lifeboat that was part of a fire at sea from a large container ship.”

O’Brien is the president and co-founder of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project (PMDP), a non-profit dedicated to cleaning up the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument. He organized and trained a group of 16 free divers to collect dangerous debris from a 185-foot ship. Animals eat the plastic and get entangled in it.

Read the full article at Fox Weather