Saving Seafood

Hawaii Longline Vessels to Improve Shark Conservation with Gear Change

November 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Hawaii Longline Association:

Hawaii-based longline vessels will voluntarily switch to monofilament leaders to promote shark conservation, the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) has announced.

The Hawaii longline fishery is among the most comprehensively managed in the world. With around 140 active vessels based out of Honolulu Harbor, the fleet is highly monitored and subject to a suite of leading protected species mitigation measures. These measures include requiring 45-gram minimum weights so that hooks will sink quickly out of seabird foraging depths, as well as the use of a type of “circle” hook that reduces the severity of interactions with sea turtles and false killer whales.

Although beneficial for sea turtles and false killer whales, sharks are more likely to be caught by the circle hooks. Hawaii longline vessels don’t retain sharks and most are released alive, but since most sharks are unable to bite through a wire leader, some sharks die on the line. Unfortunately, this includes oceanic whitetip sharks, which are now listed as “Threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Switching to monofilament leader material will allow sharks to bite through the line just above the hook, thus reducing the severity of the interaction that otherwise would occur using wire leaders. Monofilament leaders will also facilitate releasing sharks and other animals, as the material is much easier to cut than wire. Crew safety remains paramount, and the transition to monofilament leaders will be phased to ensure safety. However, the Hawaii Longline Association is setting July 1, 2021 as the target for the fleetwide conversion.

“This is an industry-led initiative to promote shark conservation and another example of the Hawaii longline fleet as a global leader in responsible fishing practices,” says HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma, PhD.

Read the full release here

$2.6M in federal aid committed to new program with hopes to help keep Hawaii’s fishing industry afloat

July 8, 2020 — Mayor Kirk Caldwell on Tuesday announced a new “fish to dish” program to help Hawaii’s ailing fishing industry.

“Our fishing community is feeling the economic strain of this pandemic like so many other industries on Oahu,” said Caldwell in a statement. “Hawaii’s longline fisherman provide a valuable source of food to our island, and fortifying this industry not only provides our community with some of the freshest fish in the world, but sets up a sustainable network to solidify our food security ahead of future disasters.”

Hawaii Longline Association Executive Director Eric Kingma said that when the market crashed in March, wholesale companies laid off about half of their employees, and some boats have remained idle for several weeks.

Overall, the direct and indirect economic impacts amount to about $1 billion and have affected about 9,000 jobs, he said, so this program comes at a critical time for the industry.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

HAWAII: City throws a line to the longline fishing industry with a new program

July 8, 2020 — Nearly 350,000 fish portions will be distributed to Oahu families over the next five months.

It’s part of a new city initiative called the “Fish to Dish” program. Its intended to support families in need while helping the longline fishing industry.

The city is paying for it with more than $2.6 million from the Coronavirus Relief Act. The funding is expected to cover 28 vessel landings per week for the next three months.

“This support really does, in many ways, act as an investment into Hawaii’s fishing industry, into its future, as well as to get us through this pandemic period,” Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association said.

Kingma added that recent restaurants welcoming back customers have helped stabilize the ahi market in particular, but the other fish species continue to take a hit.

Read the full story at Hawaii News Now

Hawaii-based fishing boats caught in economic meltdown

May 6, 2020 — About 145 commercial longline fishing boats are based in Honolulu and the group that represents them say they are facing a financial disaster.

Each year, Hawaii’s fishing industry brings in about a $100 million worth of fish on a wholesale basis. That’s according to Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association.

He says that in the last eight weeks as demand from restaurants has plunged, revenue losses for longline fishing have run about 60 percent over that time period.

And Kingma says this is not just a short-term issue..

Read the full story at Hawaii Public Radio

Hawaii marine monument expansion’s impact on fishing debated 5 years later

April 15, 2020 — Tensions flared fast as the proposed expansions of national marine monuments near Hawaii in President Barack Obama’s second term set fishermen and conservationists against each other.

The Hawaii Longline Association, representing about 150 permitted vessels, objected to fishermen being locked out of fishing grounds. Conservationists aligned with The Pew Charitable Trusts, which advocates for marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world, and rallied for the preservation of coral reefs, unknown life in the deep sea, and the area’s natural and cultural resources.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

HAWAII: Swordfish season could re-open later this year

April 10, 2019 — A sudden end to the “Swordfish Season” for Hawaii long-liners, but not because the fish stock is running low.  Instead, it is because of run-ins with another ocean creature.

While those fishing boats are now idle, Hawaii’s swordfish season could get a second wind.

Alicia’s Market in Kalihi is known for its seafood, including the swordfish it sells.

“I dry my swordfish. I have smoked swordfish, and I use a lot of the fresh nairagi,” said Leonard Kam, the owner of Alicia’s Market.

Hawaii’s longline fishing boats are no longer reeling them in as swordfish season has come to an end.

“This year the swordfish industry is closed, it closed about two weeks ago,” stated Eric Kingma the Executive Director for the Hawaii Longline Association.

Read the full story at KITV4

 

Hawaii: More Tuna For Hawaii Fishing Boats In 2018

December 27, 2017 — Hawaii’s longline fishermen didn’t get everything they were hoping for at the most recent annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international body that sets tuna catch limits for the U.S., several Asian countries and small island developing states.

But they did come out of the weeklong meeting in the Philippines with an agreement that will let the Honolulu-based fleet fish for an additional 400 tons of bigeye in 2018. Their quota next year will be about 3,500 tons, the same level as 2016.

Eric Kingma of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that manages 1.5 million square miles of U.S. waters, described the new catch limit as “suboptimal” for the roughly 140 longline vessels in Hawaii that target bigeye tuna for fresh sashimi markets and restaurants.

He said the measure does recognize the financial arrangements that Hawaii’s longliners have had the past few years with three U.S. Pacific island territories to extend their catch by up to 3,000 tons. The deals involve paying $250,000 into a fisheries development fund managed by Wespac in exchange for the ability to fish for an additional 1,000 tons and attribute it to that territory.

In 2017, the U.S. longline fleet hit its annual limit of 3,138 tons within the first eight months of the season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service. The fishermen then caught an additional 1,000 tons by the first week of December that they attributed to the Northern Marianas and have continued fishing for another 1,000 tons under their agreement with American Samoa. There is a similar arrangement with Guam should they need it, but that doesn’t seem necessary this year.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

 

Papahanaumokuakea Review Spurs Tension With Conservation Groups, Fisheries

June 28, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s targeting of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands for national review has revived a lopsided debate between Native Hawaiians, senators, scientists and conservation groups in favor of the monument’s designation, and an activist fishery council mainly concerned with “maximizing longline yields.”

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council vocally opposed the monument’s expansion in 2016 during a public comment process, communicating that to the White House under the leadership of Executive Director Kitty Simonds. Simonds’ PowerPoint presentation at a recent Council Coordination Committee meeting detailed other monument areas in the Pacific under review, including the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll, explicitly criticizing the designations as an abuse of the Antiquities Act. The PowerPoint concludes, “Make America great again. Return U.S. fishermen to U.S. waters.”

Established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Acts of 1976 and 1996, WESPAC is charged with reporting its recommendations for preventing overfishing and protecting fish stocks and habitat to the Commerce Department.

While WESPAC International Fisheries Enforcement and National Environmental Policy Act coordinator Eric Kingma believe that WESPAC’s communications with the president fall within the agency’s purview of advising the executive branch, others, including Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, consider the comments an illegal “lobby to expand WESPAC turf” and shape public policy.

WESPAC argues that monument expansion hampers longline fishermen from feeding Hawaii, which imports roughly 60 percent of the fish it eats. Pro-expansion groups such as Expand Papahanaumokuakea point out that only 5 percent of longliner take came from the monument; that longliners have recently reached their quota by summer, then resorted to buying unused blocks from other fleets; and that much of the longliners’ take, including sashimi-grade bigeye tuna, is sold at auction to the mainland U.S., as well as to Japanese and other foreign buyers. The bigeye tuna catch, moreover, has been trending upward every year since the first year of logbook monitoring in 1991. In 2014, the Hawaii longline fleet caught a record 216,897 bigeye tuna, up 12 percent from 2013.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service