Saving Seafood

US Pacific Fishery Managers Prohibit Wire Leaders, Remove Trailing Gear in New Shark Conservation Measure

June 23, 2021 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council voted today to prohibit wire leaders in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery and require removal of trailing gear for all longline vessels operating under the Pacific Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan to improve the post-hooking survivorship of oceanic whitetip sharks.

Oceanic whitetip sharks are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and are subject to overfishing and overfished in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO), primarily due to foreign fishing. U.S. longline impacts on oceanic whitetip sharks are only about 6% of the catch in the WCPO. Recognizing the low impact on the stock, the Council previously recommended that wire leader usage be reduced in international longline fisheries.

Available scientific information supports the fishing gear change from steel wire to monofilament nylon leaders to facilitate a shark’s ability to free itself from an accidental hooking by biting through the line. The measure is expected to reduce the oceanic whitetip shark catch and mortality by about 30%.

This conservation effort was initially developed by the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) as a voluntary transition presented at the Council’s December 2020 meeting. Since wire leaders are used as a safety measure to prevent fly-back of the weighted swivel, HLA will provide crew with training on shark handling and safety protocols. The Council emphasized the importance of balancing crew safety with the requirement to remove trailing gear, and recommended that fishermen target removing trailing gear down to less than 1 meter (about 3 feet), only if it is safe to do so.

The Western Pacific Region has two other active longline fisheries—the Hawai‘i shallow-set and the American Samoa longline fisheries—both of which already use nylon leaders. For this reason, the Council’s action focused on prohibiting wire leaders in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery, but the trailing gear requirement applies across the board.

The Council recognized that the wire leader prohibition would also reduce the already low interactions with silky sharks in U.S. longline fisheries. The WCPO silky shark stock is experiencing overfishing, but not overfished. The relative impact of the U.S. longline vessels is estimated at 0.8% of WCPO catches based on observer data and 0.4% based on market data.

The United States has a much higher observer coverage than most countries fishing in the WCPO, with 100% observer coverage in the Hawai‘i shallow-set longline fishery, and 20% in the Hawai‘i deep-set and American Samoa longline fisheries. The international target is 5%.

The Council concluded the first day of its three-day virtual meeting today with discussions and recommendations regarding pelagic and international fisheries. The meeting continues through June 24, 2021, by web conference (Webex). Instructions on connecting to Webex, agendas and briefing documents are posted at www.wpcouncil.org/meetings-calendars.

The Council manages federal fisheries operating in waters offshore of the State of Hawai‘i, the Territories of American Samoa and Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands Areas.

WPRFMC Scientists to Evaluate Prohibiting Wire Leaders in Hawaiʻi Longline Fishery

March 16, 2021 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee will meet this week to take action on several items, including consideration of longline gear changes that could help give incidentally caught sharks greater opportunity to survive.

Most vessels in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery use wire leaders in the terminal portion of the branchline between the hook and the weighted swivel to reduce the risk of crew injuries resulting from flyback on the vessel. Wire leaders make it difficult to remove the terminal portion of the branch line from sharks or other protected species that cannot be brought onboard. Switching to monofilament nylon leaders would allow crew to remove gear closer to the hook and may facilitate a shark’s ability to break free by biting through the line. Tagging studies show that shorter trailing gear gives sharks a better chance of survival.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Scientists to Evaluate Prohibiting Wire Leaders in Hawaiʻi Longline Fishery, Consider Catch Limits

March 12, 2021 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Scientists from throughout the Pacific will meet March 16 to 18, 2021, to discuss fishery management issues and make management recommendations for fisheries in the Western Pacific Region. The meeting of the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will be held virtually and is open to the public. The full agenda, background documents and instructions for connecting to the meeting and providing oral public comments are available at www.wpcouncil.org/event/139th-scientific-and-statistical-committee-meeting. Among the agenda items are the following:

Wire Leader Regulatory Amendment for the Hawaiʻi Longline Fishery
Most vessels in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery use wire leaders in the terminal portion of the branchline between the hook and the weighted swivel to reduce the risk of crew injuries resulting from flyback. Wire leaders make it difficult to remove the terminal portion of the branch line from sharks or other protected species that cannot be brought onboard. Switching to monofilament nylon leaders would allow crew to remove gear closer to the hook and may facilitate a shark’s ability to break free by biting through the line. Tagging studies show that shorter trailing gear gives sharks a better chance of survival.

The Hawaii Longline Association announced at the December 2020 Council meeting that their member vessels will voluntarily eliminate the use of wire leaders by July 1, 2021, and use monofilament nylon leaders or other similar materials. The Council is considering a regulatory change to prohibit the use of wire leaders that would be implemented after the fleet’s voluntary transition. The SSC will provide scientific advice to the Council on potential impacts to target and nontarget stocks, ESA-listed oceanic whitetip sharks and other protected species, fishery participants and the range of alternatives under consideration.

Main Hawaiian Islands Deep-Seven Bottomfish Catch Limits
The Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) released an update to the main Hawaiian Islands deep-seven bottomfish stock assessment with catch-and-effort data up to 2018 and fishery-independent survey data up to 2020 indicating the stock remains healthy. The assessment provided alternative catch levels at different risk levels of overfishing from 2021 to 2025 to specify new annual catch limits. The SSC will consider the new information to determine if a change in the current acceptable biological catch (508,000 pounds) is warranted.

Guam Bottomfish Rebuilding Plan
At the 184th meeting in December 2020, the Council received options to address the overfishing bottomfish stock condition in Guam based on a 2019 benchmark stock assessment. The Council selected a 31,000-pound ACL as its preliminary preferred alternative, which would rebuild the bottomfish stock within the required 10 years. Since then, Council staff received an updated biomass projection from PIFSC, which substantially changed the rebuilding timeframes of the options provided in December 2020. The SSC will review the new information, reconsider its preliminary preferred alternative and may provide recommendations to the Council regarding the rebuilding target as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

North Pacific Striped Marlin Catch Limits
The North Pacific striped marlin stock is overfished and experiencing overfishing, requiring the Council to take steps to reduce the United States’ impact on the stock. The SSC will review alternatives and may recommend to the Council appropriate U.S. catch and/or effort levels for North Pacific striped marlin and international recommendations to move towards ending overfishing. U.S. Pacific fisheries, including the Hawaiʻi longline fishery, landed approximately 19% (about 796,000 pounds per year) of reported North Pacific striped marlin catch from 2013 to 2017. Japanese fisheries landed three and a half times that amount (almost 2.8 million pounds) per year over that same period, accounting for 60% of the total catch. Since 1975, U.S. fisheries have accounted for 6% of the historical North Pacific striped marlin catch, while Japan and Taiwan fisheries landed 83% and 9%, respectively.

Recommendations made by the SSC on these and other matters will be considered by the Council when it meets March 23-25, 2021, virtually with host sites at Tedi of Samoa Building, Suite 208B, Fagatogo Village, American Samoa; BRI Building, Suite 205, Kopa Di Oru St., Garapan, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and Cliff Pointe, 304 W. O’Brien Dr., Hagatña, Guam. Instructions on connecting to the web conference, agendas and briefing documents will be posted at www.wpcouncil.org/meetings-calendars. Host sites are subject to local and federal safety and health guidelines regarding COVID-19; check the Council website for updates.

Hawaii longliners seek temporary visas for foreign crew

February 12, 2021 — After two decades it’s far past time to make it easier for foreign fishermen who work in the Hawaii longline fleet, industry advocates say.

The lockdown after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., still reverberates in the U.S. Pacific pelagic fishery, with complicated entry rules and procedures for crew from Indonesia and the Philippines who make up the bulk of the fleet’s workforce.

“Prior to 9/11 our crewmen were allowed to fly into” Honolulu to board the fleet of some 140 longline vessels, said Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association.

“So it has been about 20 years now for our fleet not being able to fly our crew in,” he said. “This issue has been around for a while and we need to resolve it.”

During the covid-19 pandemic, the Hawaii fleet has been a vital lifeline for protein to the state’s population even while taking a huge hit in lost revenue. The state’s tourism economy is a scant 25 percent of its usual volume, and between March and July 2020 the longline fleet’s revenue was down 45 percent with the pandemic collapse in restaurant business, said Kingma.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Hawaii longliners will convert to mono leaders

December 2, 2020 — Longline fishermen based in Hawaii will voluntarily switch to using monofilament leaders on their gear to promote shark conservation, the Hawaii Longline Association announced this week.

Based at Honolulu Harbor, the fleet of about 140 active vessels produces 90 percent of U.S. bigeye tuna and 50 percent of its swordfish and was sixth in landed value among U.S. ports with $100 million in 2018. The longline fishery is closely monitored and uses a suite of mitigation tools to reduce interactions with protected species.

That includes a 45-gram minimum weight on baited lines so they sink quickly and out of depths where seabirds forage and use of circle hooks to reduce interactions with sea turtles and false killer whales. But sharks are still more likely to be caught by circle hooks, according to the association.

“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,” the group explained in a statement. “Unfortunately, this includes oceanic whitetip sharks, which are now listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Models may help reduce bycatch from longline fishing

August 10, 2018 — Hundreds of thousands of sharks, sea birds and other marine species are accidentally killed each year after they become snagged or entangled in longline fishing gear.

New models developed by a Duke University-led team may help reduce this threat by giving regulatory agencies a powerful new tool to predict the month-by-month movements of longline fishing fleets on the high seas. The predictions should help determine where and when the boats will enter waters where by-catch risks are greatest.

“By comparing our models with data showing where by-catch species are likely to be each month, ship captains, national agencies and regional fisheries management organizations can pinpoint potential hotspots they may want to temporarily avoid or place off-limits,” said Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, a doctoral candidate in the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

“This represents a movement away from a reactive approach to fisheries management — where we only know about problems as or after they occur — to a more proactive approach that helps us stay one step ahead of the game,” he said.

Ortuño Crespo and his colleagues describe their new models in a peer-reviewed paper August 8 in Science Advances.

To devise the models, they collaborated with Global Fishing Watch to collect geospatial information from individual boats’ automatic identification system (AIS) signals. AIS data shows the movements and distribution of longline fishing fleets operating in the high seas in 2015 and 2016.

Then they statistically correlated each ship’s fishing efforts to 14 environmental variables — such as sea surface temperatures or distance to the nearest seamount — that influence a region’s seasonal suitability as a habitat for species targeted by longliners. This allowed them to create highly accurate models that predict where the fishing fleets will be each month of the year.

The new models track data for fleets from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Spain, which accounts for most of the longline fishing currently taking place in the open ocean beyond national jurisdictions. Future models could include fleets from other nations and offer expanded functionality that will allow regulatory agencies to view the data within a global context or break it down by individual nation, region or fleet.

Read the full story at Science Daily

Hawaii’s Longline Fishermen Hit Bigeye Tuna Limit Early

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.

Read and listen to the full story at Hawaii Public Radio

Former Hawaii Governor, Chefs Protest Marine Monument Expansion

July 18, 2016 — Set against a backdrop of commercial fishing boats at Pier 38 in Honolulu, former Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi told a crowd of roughly 200 people Friday that they need to work together to stop the proposed expansion of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

“We should not let the federal government come in and tell us what to do with our ocean,” the 90-year-old Ariyoshi said, receiving a round of applause.

It was the biggest rally to date against expanding the monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Some waved signs saying “Fishing Means Food” and “MVP Most Valuable Poke.”

Top chefs like Nico Chaize and George Mavrothalassitis were on hand, along with longline fishermen who object to a further encroachment on their fishing grounds.

Chaize told the crowd that the expansion would lead to higher poke prices and greater reliance on imported frozen fish.

The longliners primarily go after bigeye tuna, a highly valued species targeted for sashimi markets. They catch on average 8 percent of their annual haul of tuna from the area within the boundaries of the proposed expansion.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

HAWAII: Longliners Have Nearly Pulled In Their 2016 Limit Of Bigeye Tuna

July 14, 2016 — Hawaii’s longline fleet is about to hit its 3,554-ton limit for bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific, prompting a closure date for the fishery of July 22, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The longliners had caught an estimated 98 percent of their annual quota by Wednesday, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service reported. The feds had been predicting longliners would hit their bigeye tuna limit by Aug. 14.

But the closure will likely be short-lived thanks to a federal rule that proposes, like in years past, allowing U.S. Pacific Island territories — American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — to each allocate up to 1,000 tons of their 2,000-ton quotas to U.S. longliners under a “specified fishing agreement.”

In April, the Hawaii Longline Association reached such an agreement with the Marianas that involves paying the territory $250,000 in each of the next three years for up to half of its quota. That’s $50,000 more than the association paid the territory last year.

The money is deposited into the Western Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which the territories use for fishery development projects approved by their respective governors, according to Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council spokeswoman Sylvia Spalding. These includes boat ramps, fish markets, processing facilities, training programs and loan programs.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

SUSAN POLLACK: Fishing For Progress: Saying No To ‘No Women On Board’

June 10, 2016 — In 1982, as supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment fought claims that that the proposed amendment to the Constitution would destroy the American family, I confronted an older mythology: Women are bad luck on boats.

I was a young maritime reporter for The East Hampton Star on Eastern Long Island. I loved boats and the sea, and I’d always loved adventure. That summer, I planned to join local fishermen aboard a state-of-the-art Japanese squid ship. This was several years after the United States enacted its 200-mile limit, but before American fishermen had fully developed a squid fishery of their own. In exchange for sharing their technical know-how, the Japanese would be permitted to catch squid in our waters.

I was game.

But as I was readying my boots and gear, I received an unexpected warning from the American sponsors of the U.S-Japan venture: no women on board.

Surely, something must be wrong: I’d spent the previous five years in gurry-soaked oil skins reporting on life at sea on American draggers, lobster boats, bay scallopers, gillnetters, long-liners and clamming rigs. I’d photographed the sun rising over the stern of a dragger hauling its catch of yellowtail and blackback flounders, cod, haddock and scup. I’d spent bone-chilling winter days in an open skiff, culling bay scallops – separating the delicate fan-shaped bivalves from whelks, rocks and seaweed. I’d danced on the boat, not for joy, but to keep warm.

On summer evenings, I’d helped my neighbor lift his gillnets, gingerly plucking out sharp-toothed bluefish and the occasional striper. And I’d finally succeeded in filleting a flounder without mangling the fragile flesh.

Read the full story at WBUR