March 22, 2019 — The Hawaiian shallow-set longlines fishery for swordfish has been closed because a vessel caught a loggerhead turtle – the 17th this year, which reached the allowable limit for interactions with the species, set by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The interaction cap was reduced from 34 to 17 due to a court settlement in May of last year, though the North Pacific loggerhead population is increasing every year by 2.4 percent.
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has been waiting for the NMFS to complete a new biological opinion for the fishery, so that the interaction cap for loggerhead turtles can be modified. On board every vessel of the Hawaii-based shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish, there is a federal observer tracking species interactions.
Kitty M. Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, wrote in a report earlier this week that the “pace with which MNFS PIRO [Pacific Islands Regional Office] responds to federal and legal procedures has left all of the region’s major fisheries at risk.”