April 5, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council concluded a three-day meeting yesterday in Honolulu with a suite of recommendations to more effectively address issues facing fisheries in the US Pacific Islands. The SSC recommendations will be considered March 18-21 in Honolulu by the Council, a federal instrumentality created by Congress to develop fishery management measures for offshore fisheries in the US Pacific Islands. Recommendations of the Council that are approved by the US Secretary of Commerce are implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
False Killer Whales: The Southern Exclusion Zone (SEZ), a 132,000 square mile area in the offshore waters around the main Hawaiian Islands, was closed to the Hawai‘i longline fishery on Feb. 22, 2019, after its interactions resulted in a mortality and serious injury (M&SI) determination for two false killer whales. With the SEZ closed, less than 18 percent of US exclusive economic zone around Hawai‘i remains open to the fishery. The SEZ may reopen in 2020 if the average estimated false killer whale M&SI in the deep-set longline fishery within the remaining open areas of the EEZ around Hawai‘i for up to the five most recent years is below the potential biological removal (PBR) for the species. This Honolulu-based fishery lands about $100 million of sashimi-quality tuna, which stays principally in the state. The PBR is defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act as the maximum number of animals that can be removed, not including natural mortalities, from a marine mammal stock while allowing that stock to reach and maintain its optimum sustainable population, i.e., its maximum productivity keeping in mind the carrying capacity of the habitat and health of the ecosystem. The SSC recommended that the Council request NMFS develop approaches to incorporate population viability analysis (PVA) to supplement the use of PBR and to reduce uncertainty in PBR estimates. PVA is a species-specific risk assessment method frequently used in conservation biology. The SSC also requested that the Council ask NMFS to provide the data needed for the SSC to develop the PVA in parallel to the NMFS process. It also asked that NMFS develop serious-injury determination criteria for false killer whales that are probability-based. Currently, NMFS considers the impact of a false killer whale determined to be seriously injured to be equivalent to the impact of a dead false killer whale, even though animals determined to be seriously injured are released alive.
Spatial Management: A subgroup of the SSC worked to define benefits and limitations to spatial management actions relative to regional fishery issues and management objectives. The working group explored time-area closures; adaptive/real-time closures and restrictions; permanent no-take closures; and alternative non-spatial management actions, such as gear restrictions. It discussed objectives of management actions, such as increasing targeted bigeye and albacore tuna abundance and reducing Hawai‘i longline interactions with sea turtles and false killer whales. It also identified criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of spatially managed areas. The SSC reviewed the outcomes of the working group and recommended that effective spatial management should have the following:
- Objectives and performance metrics explicitly specified prior to developing a spatial management area in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the spatial management. The performance metrics should concurrently address conservation, economic and social objectives.
- Regular monitoring of the performance of the spatial management area.
- Planned and tenable compliance monitoring and enforcement.