Saving Seafood

Hawaiian swordfish catches to recommence after loggerhead-related closure

January 21, 2020 — The US state of Hawaii’s swordfish fishery is expected to land its first catch in nine months this weekend (Jan. 18-19), after closing on Mar. 19, 2019 upon reaching the loggerhead turtle interaction cap.

The fishery produces about 55% of America’s domestic swordfish and supplies 14% of the total US swordfish market.

“Without Hawaii swordfish, US markets will increase their dependence on foreign suppliers,” said Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC), which manages the fishery.

“Our pelagic longline fisheries are well managed and rigorously monitored, and regulations are enforced. International fishery management organizations consider them model fisheries and have adopted many of the measures we developed. Our fishery targets the North Pacific stock, which is healthy…and avoids the troubled Eastern Pacific and South Atlantic stocks.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Hawai’i Swordfish Harvest Is Back after Nine-Month Hiatus – New Measures Will Aid Fishery and Protect Sea Turtles

January 17, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Hawai’i swordfish fishery is expected to land its first catch in nine months tomorrow. This healthy fishery produces approximately 55 percent of America’s domestic swordfish and supplies 14 percent of the total US swordfish market.

“Without Hawai’i swordfish, US markets will increase their dependence on foreign suppliers,” said Kitty M. Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which manages the fishery. “Our pelagic longline fisheries are well managed and rigorously monitored, and regulations are enforced. International fishery management organizations consider them model fisheries and have adopted many of the measures we developed. Our fishery targets the North Pacific stock, which is healthy (not overfished or subject to overfishing), and avoids the troubled Eastern Pacific and South Atlantic stocks.”

Some of these rigorous conservation measures include rules protecting sea turtles, gear restrictions and a cap on the number of sea turtles with which the fishery may interact. The fishery currently operates under an annual cap of 17 loggerhead and 16 leatherback turtle interactions and has 100 percent observer coverage. An interaction occurs whenever a sea turtle becomes hooked or entangled in longline gear, as recorded by the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) observer.

The fishery closed on March 19 last year after reaching the loggerhead cap and reopened on Jan. 1, 2020.

According to a 2019 biological opinion issued by NMFS, the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish does not jeopardize the continued existence of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtle populations. Ninety-nine percent of turtle interactions in the fishery result in the turtle being released alive. The loggerhead turtle population, which nests in Japan, is growing at an annual rate of 2.4 percent.

The Council has developed amended measures, which were transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce on Wednesday for review and approval. The amendment, which could be effective as early as May 2020, would remove the loggerhead cap and have a leatherback cap of 16. The amendment includes a trip limit of five loggerhead and two leatherback interactions, after which a vessel would be required to return to port. If that vessel reaches the trip limit again, it could not fish for swordfish for the remainder of the year and it could interact with only five loggerhead and two leatherbacks total the following year.

Mike Lee of Garden and Valley Isle Seafood notes: “The Hawai’i swordfish fishery has a multimillion dollar impact to the local economy, which includes several wholesale seafood distribution companies. Hawai’i swordfish is a premium product with high levels of demand. Fishery closures disrupt market channels and leave our customers little choice but foreign imports.”

“For the last two years the fishery operated for about three months due to premature closure and generated around $1.5 million in landed value, said Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA). “By comparison, the fishery produced three times that revenue ($4.5 million) in 2017 and nearly $9 million in 2009. Additionally, closing the fishery forces swordfish vessels to convert to target tuna (ahi) with the risk that the bigeye tuna quota may be reached before the end of the year, when market demand peaks.”

The Lady Luck, the first vessel from the Hawai’i swordfish fleet, is expected offload around 35,000 pounds of swordfish at Pier 38 in Honolulu around 5 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 17. The swordfish could appear on the auction floor around 9 a.m. For more information, contact Eric Kingma, HLA executive director, at (808) 389-2653 or eric.k.kingma@gmail.com or Asuka Ishizaki, the Council’s protected species coordinator, at (808) 522-8224 or asuka.ishizaki@wpcouncil.org.

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE US SWORDFISH FISHERY OPERATING UNDER HAWAI’I LONGLINE FEDERAL PERMITS

  • Major domestic fish producer – providing 55 percent of US swordfish
  • Major supplier to total US market including imports – providing 14 percent of US swordfish market
  • Ex-vessel (landed) value – $1.5 million in 2019 (Jan. 1 – March 19); $4.5 million in 2017; $9 million in 2009
  • Management measures – permit requirements, limits on vessel size and numbers, gear restricted to circle hooks and mackerel-type bait, limit on number of sea turtle interactions, required turtle handling tools, requirement to release turtles unharmed, mandatory protected species workshops, prohibited from operating within 50 nautical miles of the Hawaiian Islands
  • Monitoring – logbooks, vessel monitoring system, 100 percent observer coverage (NMFS approved, independent observer on each vessel on every trip)
  • Enforcement – closure of fishery if sea turtle cap is reached
  • Target stock – North Pacific swordfish, a healthy fishery that is neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing
    • Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the stock – 15,000 metric tons (mt)
    • Current spawning stock biomass – almost double spawning stock biomass at MSY
    • Current total catch by all fleets combined – about 11,000 mt or about 73 percent of MSY
    • US harvest – currently about 1,000 mt or 10 percent of the total harvest. In 2008, the US (i.e., Hawai’i longline fisheries) harvested 18 percent of the total catch.
    • Other major fleets harvesting the North Pacific stock – Japan (about 8,000 mt) and Taiwan (about 2,000 mt)
  • Foreign competitors in the US swordfish market
    • Brazil – targeting North and South Atlantic stock, the latter of which is overfished and experiencing overfishing
    • Mexico and Ecuador (including charter vessels from Spain and the European Union) – targeting Eastern Pacific stock, which is experiencing overfishing
  • Fleet size – currently 14 vessels of which five are based in California
  • Average vessel size – 65 to 70 feet (maximum allowable 101 feet)
  • Average target depth – 98 feet

Tradition-Based Natural Resource Management: Practice and Application in the Hawaiian Islands

May 22, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council:

Palgrave Studies in Natural Resource Management has just announced the release of “Tradition-Based Natural Resource Management: Practice and Application in the Hawaiian Islands” by Ed Glazier. The book offers an overview of bottom-up management of natural resource management that can be applied globally; spotlights Native Hawaiian advocacy for traditional management of the island’s natural resources; and provides a framework for resource managers, scientists and policymakers as well as indigenous populations. It highlights the Aha Moku system of natural resource management.

In the Foreword, Kitty M. Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, writes: “From the resurgence of non-instrument navigation and traditional voyaging canoes to familiar activities like baby lua’u and other pa’ina (celebratory feastings), Ed shows that continuing and reclaiming the indigenous culture occurs on many levels and involves both Native Hawaiians and those who have come to call Hawai’i home.”

For more information, go to https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030148416

Western Pacific Council Director: Marine Monuments ‘Major Impediment’ to U.S. Fisheries

WASHINGTON — May 1, 2019 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

In testimony before a House subcommittee today, Kitty Simonds, the Executive Director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) labeled the increasing number and size of marine monuments a “major impediment” to U.S. fisheries. According to Ms. Simonds, these designations force fishermen to travel farther, longer, and at greater costs, with little conservation benefit.

Members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities also submitted a letter to the Subcommittee, which was entered into the committee hearing record, asking that fishing inside of the marine monuments be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and that future monument designations include input from commercial fishermen. The letter notes that previous monument designations were made “with no formal public hearings, cost-benefit analyses, or input from affected constituents, and despite no compelling reason or threat to marine resources.”

“The Council process allows for stakeholders, scientists, and concerned citizens to review and debate policy decisions in a transparent manner,” the letter states. “In contrast, the Antiquities Act authorizes the president to take away public areas and public resources with no public input. Using executive authority, the President can close any federal lands and waters in an opaque, top-down process that too often excludes the very people who would be most affected.”

The letter was signed by 20 fishing organizations and 8 fishing vessels, representing fishermen from 11 states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island.

Ms. Simonds cited other negative consequences of the policy, including making it harder to prevent illegal fishing by foreign vessels in the U.S. EEZ; limiting, along with other closures, fishermen to operate in as little as 17 percent of the U.S. EEZ; and a decrease in the number of longline vessels and the amount of their catch.

“These prohibitions have forced our fishermen out of more than half of the U.S. [Exclusive Economic Zone] EEZ in the [Western and Central Pacific Ocean] and onto the high seas, where they are forced to compete with foreign fleets on the fishing grounds,” said Ms. Simonds in her testimony, delivered before the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife. “Currently 70 percent of the Hawaii longline effort is on the high seas. We also know, based on expert scientific knowledge, that forcing U.S. vessels out of U.S. waters has no conservation benefit to tuna and highly migratory stocks or to protected species.”

 

Hawaiian longline fishery for swordfish closed due to turtle interactions

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.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Hawaii Longline Swordfish Fishery Closed for Rest of Year; Industry Helped Negotiate Closure

May 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In the ups and downs of the Hawaiian swordfish fishery, the recent May 8 closure for the rest of the year was no surprise to the industry. Longliners worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service and plaintiffs of a recent lawsuit to comply with a court order.

The Turtle Island Restoration Network, Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice originally sued the Department of Commerce over a 2012 biological opinion that allowed the shallow set longline fishery to take a certain number of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles every year. The U.S. District Court of Hawaii ruled in NMFS’ favor, so the ENGOs appealed. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split decision on Dec. 27, 2017, affirming the BiOp regarding leatherback sea turtles, but not for loggerhead turtles. The Hawaii Longline Association, which filed as interveners, were party to the settlement negotiations with the plaintiffs and NMFS, which were outlined in a May 4, 2018 agreement and court order. The result for 2018 was closure for the rest of the year.

While ENGOs are cheering the outcome as a victory for sea turtles, it’s somewhat of a pyrrhic victory and does more to promote an agenda for the plaintiffs rather than have any actual effect this year.

“The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is supposed to be protecting our wildlife, has instead been illegally helping the longliners push sea turtles to the brink of extinction,” Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said in a press release. “We won’t allow it.”

The main swordfish season usually takes place in the winter, with most landings occurring by the end of March. This year was an anomaly, Hawaii Longline Association President Sean Martin said, in that the fishery reached its annual limit of turtle interactions in January, so the fleet was already done with swordfish for the year.

“We’re on the tail end of what would be the prime season anyway,” Martin said.

The fishery will open again on Jan. 1, 2019, no matter what, Martin said. Since the court vacated the 2012 biological opinion, NMFS is working on a new one. The agency could come back with a new incidental take statement for next year’s fishing season. Or, if the BiOp and corresponding take statement are not finished by Jan. 1, the fishery will open under an incidental take allowance approved by an earlier BiOp that allowed roughly half the number of turtle interactions as the 2012 BiOp.

Federal officials note the loggerhead turtles already show signs of recovery due to a history of better management measures, such as circle hooks and using mackerel for bait — squid bait is prohibited –has proven immensely effective worldwide. Most turtles caught in the fishery are released alive.

Those measures and more, implemented in the early 2000s, reduced sea turtle interactions in the fishery by 93 percent, the Council said. Observer coverage is 100 percent; all vessel owners and operators annually attend mandatory protected species workshops; all longline vessels are required to carry specified tools to safely remove hooks and lines from the turtles and to follow safe handling, resuscitation and release procedures; vessels are monitored through a mandatory satellite-based vessel monitoring system; and longline closed areas from 0 to 50 nautical miles of the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have existed since the early 1990s.

“The record of 99 percent live releases, only two mortalities in 24 years and increasing loggerhead abundance over the past two decades underscore the management success of the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery,” Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds said in a press release.

Martin said most of the 30 or so longline vessels will instead turn to the deep-set longline fishery for the remainder of the year, targeting tunas.

This story originally appeared in Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Western Pacific council hopes to build up aquaculture around US-controlled islands

March 16, 2018 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRMC) took initial action on March 15 to establish an aquaculture management program for the exclusive economic zone of the US Pacific islands.

“Supplementing the harvest of domestic fisheries with cultured product would help the United States meet consumers’ growing demand for seafood and may reduce the dependence on seafood imports,” said Kitty Simonds, the council’s executive director.

The aquaculture plan would establish a regional permitting process and provide a comprehensive framework to regulate activities so as to protect wild fish stocks and fisheries. Requirements would include a federal permit that is renewable and transferable, an aquaculture operations plan, prohibition areas, allowable species, and record-keeping and reporting.

The council is expected to take final action on the plan during its next meeting, scheduled for June 12 to 15, 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaii, pending completion of a programmatic environmental impact statement by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

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

Hawaii Commercial Fishermen, Seafood Consumers Hit Again as President, Pew’s Ocean Legacy Closes Additional 442,778 Square Miles of Fishing Grounds in the U.S. Pacific Islands

August 26, 2016 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

HONOLULU, Hawaii — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council today expressed its disappointment with the announcement that President Obama will expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to the full extent of the U.S. exclusive economic zone (out to 200 miles from shore) to encompass a total 582,578 square miles around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

“We do not believe the expansion is based on the best available scientific information,” said Kitty Simonds, Council executive director. “It serves a political legacy rather than any conservation benefits to pelagic species such as tunas, billfish, sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals. The campaign to expand the monument was organized by a multibillion dollar, agenda-driven environmental organization that has preyed upon the public’s lack of understanding of ocean resource management issues and utilized influential native Hawaiians and several high-level politicians to lead this initiative. Our government has chosen to follow the Pew’s Ocean Legacy.”

Last week, the Council provided Obama with two options for monument expansion that would have achieved the protection and legacy objectives that the proponents were seeking while also minimizing impacts to the Hawaii longline fishery and local seafood production. “The President obviously chose not to balance the interests of Hawaii’s community, which has been divided on this issue,” Simonds said.

“Closing 60 percent of Hawaii’s waters to commercial fishing, when science is telling us that it will not lead to more productive local fisheries, makes no sense,” said Council Chair Edwin Ebiusi Jr. “Today is a sad day in the history of Hawaii’s fisheries and a negative blow to our local food security.” Fisheries are the state’s top food producer, according the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

The expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea monument is the fourth time a U.S. President has used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create or expand a marine national monument. All four of the U.S. marine national monuments are in the U.S. Pacific Islands. “Our islands are populated by minority ethnicities,” Simonds said. “We have little representation in Congress and are located 5,000 to 8,000 miles from nation’s capital. Placing all of the marine monuments in our waters is a conservation burden to U.S. Pacific Islanders and a is a socioenvironmental injustice, especially as we rely on the oceans for fresh fish that is our culture and our tradition.”

For more information from the Council on the monument expansion, read the summer 2016 issue of the Pacific Islands Fishery News at  www.wpcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PIFN-Summer2016-FINAL.pdf or contact the Council at info.wpcouncil@noaa.gov.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council was established by Congress in 1976 under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. It has authority over fisheries in the Pacific Ocean seaward of the States, Commonwealth, Territories and possessions of the United States. Council Members: Secretary of Commerce appointees from nominees selected by American Samoa, CNMI, Guam and Hawai`i governors: Michael Duenas, Guam Fishermen’s Cooperative Association (Guam) (vice chair); Edwin Ebisui Jr. (Hawaii) (chair); Michael Goto, United Fishing Agency Ltd. (Hawaii); John Gourley, Micronesian Environmental Services (CNMI) (vice chair); Christinna Lutu-Sanchez, commercial fisherman (American Samoa); McGrew Rice, commercial and charter fisherman (Hawaii) (vice chair); Dean Sensui, film producer (Hawaii); and Archie Solai, StarKist cannery (American Samoa) (vice chair). Designated state officials: Suzanne Case, Hawai`i Department of Land and Natural Resources; Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources; Richard Seman, CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources; and Matt Sablan, Guam Department of Agriculture. Designated federal officials: Matthew Brown, USFWS Pacific Islands Refuges and Monuments Office;  Michael Brakke, US Department of State; RADM Vincent B. Atkins, US Coast Guard 14th District; and Michael Tosatto, NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office.

Feds hear truth about fisheries and American Samoa

February 27, 2016 — Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council executive director Kitty Simonds this week stressed to delegates at the federal Interagency Group on Insular Areas (IGIA) meeting the importance of the fishing industry in American Samoa where two canneries are located and the canneries are the territory’s economic backbone.

Simonds was one of the representatives from federal agencies during Monday’s IGIA three-hour meeting at the White House. She explained that American Samoa is “totally, [and] practically dependent on fisheries” and for 50 years fish processing and canning has been the backbone of American Samoa’s economy.

She noted that one of the recent issues affecting cannery and fisheries in American Samoa is the banning of US purse seiner fleet from fishing on high seas and the US EEZ. She told the IGIA meeting that one of the reasons “why we have these kinds of problems is because of our US negotiators from the US Commerce and US State departments” at some of the international fishery commission meetings (referring to the Western and Central Pacific Fishery Commissions).

“We have tried to work together to ensure that when the negotiators go to these meetings they support US fisheries. And frankly over the last two years, that has been the big problem, in terms of American Samoa’s cannery problems,” she said, adding that she is not dismissing the minimum wage issue impacting the canneries. “I’m talking about policy.”

Read the full story at Samoa News