July 21, 2016 — For the second year in a row, Hawai‘i longline fishermen are on course to hit their annual limit for bigeye tuna. And again, it’s much earlier than expected. The island’s longline fleet will close in Western and Central pacific waters this Friday, and larger vessels in the Eastern region will also be halted a few days later. HPR’s Molly Solomon has more.
Starting Friday, the productive fishing grounds west of the Hawaiian Islands will be off limits for Hawai‘i’s longline fishing fleet. That’s more than three weeks earlier than fishery officials had predicted.
Sean Martin is president of the Hawai‘i Longline Association. They represent the 140 vessels that will be affected by the closure.
“Having less area to explore and trying to find an area of productive fishing becomes more complicated because a large swath of the ocean is no longer available,” said Martin.