Saving Seafood

Environmentalists ask court to stop Hawaii tuna quota shift

September 25, 2015 — HONOLULU (AP) – Environmentalists on Friday asked a federal judge to stop the National Marine Fisheries Service from allowing Hawaii-based fishermen to attribute some of the bigeye tuna they catch to U.S. territories.

They argue the agency is enabling the fishermen to circumvent international agreements aimed at controlling the overfishing of a popular tuna species known as ahi.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin told U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi the fisheries service acted illegally when it created a framework allowing Hawaii longline fishermen to record some of their catch as having been caught by fishermen in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.

“This is allowing them to fish without limits,” Henkin said of Hawaii fishermen during a hearing in federal court for a motion Earthjustice filed on behalf of the Conservation Council for Hawaii and other environmental groups.

Bradley Oliphant, a U.S. Justice Department attorney who argued on behalf of the fisheries service, said the agency carefully studied the environmental effects of the quota transfer. He said the arrangement meets the requirements of U.S. fisheries and environmental laws.

The 26-member nation Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which regulates fishing from east and southeast Asia to waters around Hawaii, set a limit of about 3,500 metric tons for Hawaii longline fishermen this year. That’s about 7 percent less than last year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at New Jersey Herald 

 

Hawaii’s longline fleet dodges hurricanes

September 2, 2015 — HONOLULU — Bigeye tuna caught by Hawaii’s longline industry is in short supply right now as the fleet dodges Hurricane Ignacio and Hurricane Jimena. Some longline vessels that headed out, turned around without catching anything to avoid the powerful storms.

Nico’s Pier 38 and Nico’s Fish Market are known for fresh fish. Customers consume 600 to 700 pounds of bigeye tuna fillets daily. Ahi prices are going up at the auction, but the restaurant isn’t planning to pass the higher cost along to patrons.

“It’s something I’ve been doing for the past 11 years now. I do average price for the year. I’m not going to make any money this month maybe. I don’t know how long it’s going to last,” said owner Nico Chaize.

In August, Hawaii’s longline fleet hit the bigeye tuna catch limit of 3,502 metric tons established by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. Vessels shorter than 80 feet are allowed to fish in the Eastern Pacific, but they have to travel hundreds of miles to get there. Some boats from Hawaii had to ride out Ignacio on Sunday night and Hurricane Jimena isn’t too far behind.

Read the full story at Hawaii News Now

 

Majuro Workshop Explores Management Options for Pacific Bigeye Tuna Overfishing

August 20, 2015 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

MAJURO, REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS (21 August 2015) A workshop to discuss bigeye tuna management in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) was convened by the Marshall Islands Marine Resource Authority (MIMRA) and the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (WPFMC) on Aug. 19-21, 2015, in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands. The workshop brought together representatives from Asian, U.S. and Pacific Island purse-seine and longline fishing industries, government officials of Pacific Island countries, and representatives from the Forum Fisheries Agency, Parties to the Nauru Agreement, Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), Secretariat of the Pacific Community, and non-governmental organizations. The workshop was chaired by Andrew Wright, former executive director of the WCPFC.

Bigeye tuna, which is currently overfished in the WCPO, is subject to international management through the WCPFC. The objective of the workshop was to identify options that could help improve the existing WCPFC bigeye conservation and management measure.

As summarized by Kitty Simonds, WPFMC executive director, “The workshop was the second in a series that was started in April 2015 in Honolulu to address bigeye overfishing. The workshop embodied the spirit of cooperation that was present in the development of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which was initiated 20 years ago by the Majuro Declaration. It is critical that the fishing industries and governments work together to improve the status of bigeye; only through international cooperation can effective tuna conservation and management measures be adopted and implemented.”

Over the course of the three-day workshop, participants discussed purse-seine and longline management options, avoiding the transfer of a disproportionate conservation burden on Small Island Developing States and Territories (SIDS), compliance issues and key bigeye tuna research themes. The outcomes of the workshop are a contribution to the consultations that will involve all WCPFC members that will take place in the lead up to this year’s annual session of the Commission in Bali in December.

According to Glen Joseph, MIMRA director, “The status quo is not acceptable for bigeye conservation, and workshops like the one we just held are critically important to advance options and views on management measures well before the Commission meets in Bali in December. For most of the Pacific Islands, all we have is tuna, and we have to do everything in our power to ensure that tuna resources are sustainably managed.”

Hawaii Longline Bigeye Fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Forced to Close

July 30, 2015 — HONOLULU HI — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

HONOLULU (29 July 2015) The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced that Hawaii longline vessels fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) will no longer be able to retain and land bigeye tuna between August 5, 2015, and the end of the year. This is because the fishery has reached a bigeye catch limit of 3,502 metric tons (mt), established by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in 2014.

The United States is a member of the WCPFC, which is an international fisheries organization consisting of over 30 countries charged with managing tuna and other highly migratory fish stocks in the WCPO. The WCPO is the world’s largest tuna fishery, driven by the industrial purse-seine fleets targeting skipjack and yellowfin, with recent annual catches estimated at around 3,000,000 mt.

Longline catch limits are among a suite of measures adopted by the WCPFC for the conservation and management of WCPO bigeye. Overexploitation of bigeye has developed over the past 30 years with increasing catches of juveniles by purse-seine vessels, on top of the catch of adults by longliners. Purse-seine vessels incidentally catch small bigeye while fishing on drifting fish aggregation devices (FADs) when targeting skipjack and yellowfin for canned markets. Longline vessels target adult bigeye for sashimi markets.

No bigeye catch limits are required of the various fleets of tuna purse-seine vessels in the WCPO, which collectively catch more bigeye in total than the longline fleets. Over the past decade, longline fleets throughout the WCPO have reduced their bigeye catches consistent with WCPFC conservation and management measures. Purse-seine bigeye catches, however, continue to rise, reaching record levels in 2013 of 82,000 mt versus a longline catch in the same year of about 63,000 mt.

Although the WCPO will be restricted to Hawaii longline vessels, some will be able to fish for bigeye to the east of the 150 degree line of longitude in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO), which is under a different international tuna management regime, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. However, Hawaii and other US longline vessels in the EPO are subject to a 500 mt bigeye limit for vessels greater than 24 meters. This limit is expected to be reached sometime in September. Approximately, 23 percent of the Hawaii longline fleet is over 24 meters.

The effects of these closures are going to reduce the supply of Hawaii longline-caught bigeye tuna to the Honolulu fish auction. From an economic perspective, each Hawaii longline vessel can be likened to a “mom and pop store” or similar small business. Not being able to fish is like a store closing for the same amount of time, with disastrous effects on livelihoods.

There is a ray of light on the horizon for Hawaii consumers who prefer locally caught bigeye tuna. Under federal regulations recommended by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council), the US Participating Territories to the WCPFC, which include Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands have the ability to transfer bigeye quota to the Hawaii longline fishery.

The Council has managed the Hawaii longline fleet for the past 30 years, and it continues to be a well-managed, highly monitored environmentally responsible fishery. The Hawaii fleet targets bigeye at high latitudes, well outside the tropical and equatorial zones, where 90 percent of bigeye fishing mortality occurs. Scientific research has shown that the operational area of the Hawaii fleet has very little impact on bigeye stock status.

The potential interruption in bigeye catch and the climate of uncertainty will have a negative impact on the seafood industry in Hawaii, especially for those dealers who prize US caught bigeye above foreign imports. There is an increasing demand by local retailers to supply not only locally caught fish, but to know that the supply is also from the environmentally responsible Hawaii longline fleet.