Combined area and seasonal closures for Hawaii bottomfish fishery recommended

HONOLULU—The Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council recently recommended that the council consider closing part of Penguin Bank to bottomfish fishing and establishing a seasonal closure for bottomfish fishing throughout the main Hawaiian Islands.

Located west of Molokai and southeast of Oahu, Penguin Bank is the most utilized bottomfish ground in the main Hawaiian Islands. The recommendation addresses the need to reduce fishing mortality of bottomfish by 15 percent in the main Hawaiian Islands following a determination by the Secretary of Commerce that overfishing of bottomfish is occurring in these waters.

A seasonal closure throughout the main Hawaiian Islands would require cooperation between the Council, which manages waters three to 200 miles offshore, and the State of Hawaii, which manages waters zero to three miles offshore. If the state is opposed, the SSC recommended as an alternative solution the closing of the entire Penguin Bank and Middle Bank (located north of Kauai). Both of these banks are in federal waters. This alternative would concentrate the impact on Molokai and Oahu fishermen, the SSC noted.

The council will consider the SSC’s recommendations when it meets Nov. 8 to 11, 2005, on Guam. The council is expected to take final action on this issue in March 2006, when it meets in Honolulu.

During the three-day SSC meeting, which concluded yesterday in Honolulu, the scientists also made the following recommendations, among others, to the council:

– Strongly encourage the U.S. delegation to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission to advocate for the adoption of measures that would reduce purse-seine effort by 15 percent or redirect purse-seine effort from fish aggregation devices to free-swimming schools. Such measures should be implemented because projections suggest they will lead to recovery of both bigeye and yellowfin tuna in a five- to 10-year period.

– Closely monitor the expanding short longline fishery (using lines less than 1 nautical mile in length) for tuna and monchong (pomfret) in Hawaii and for sharks in Guam.

– Fund a project to quantify the benefits of the Council’s turtle conservation projects.

– Conduct a workshop with countries bordering American Samoa on issues of mutual concern, such as longline fisheries for albacore tuna.

For more information on the SSC recommendations or the upcoming Council meeting, contact the Council at (808) 522-8220, (808) 522-8226 (fax), info.wpcouncil@noaa.gov or www.wpcouncil.org. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is the policy-making agency for fisheries management in federal waters of the U.S. Pacific Islands. (PR)