FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM A 27-foot steel chute is part of a device that will be used by longline fishermen to reduce the incidence of seabirds being hooked. The chute extends off the boat’s stern and allows baited hooks to slide down the inside and exit underwater. Jerry Ray, captain of the ship Katy Mary, walked alongside the device yesterday at Pier 35 in Honolulu Harbor.

Longliners devise
way to avoid
killing seabirds

An underwater device keeps
baited hooks out of the birds' reach

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By Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com

Hawaii's longline fishing industry is hoping a new baiting technique will help save seabirds that are killed annually in waters around the state.

The birds, most notably the albatross, die when they get hooked or tangled in the longlines.

The Katy Mary, an Oahu longline vessel, was the first to try the new underwater bait-setting chute in fishing grounds north of islands where seabirds are abundant.

No seabirds were caught or killed during the experiment, according to vessel owner Jim Cook, who is chairman of the advisory panel to the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and legal liaison with the Hawaii Longline Association.

The chute works by discharging baited hooks about 15 feet underwater out of the sight and reach of diving seabirds, Cook said. The conventional method involves throwing the baited hooks off the end of the boat, where they float on the surface of the water, making it easy for seabirds to get the bait, he said.

This is how they accidentally get caught.

Environmental groups have criticized longline fishing methods for years because of the number of turtles, sharks and other animals that get caught and die in the 25 to 30 miles of hooks and lines.

The experiment involved running 6,500 hooks through the chute, which is hung off the end of the boat.

There were only 50 attempts by seabirds to take the bait, when some of it may have become dislodged from the hooks, but none was successful, Cook said.

Using the conventional method, Cook said, there were 750 attempts to take the bait, and 24 albatross were hooked and killed.

"The albatross can't get at it (bait) underwater," he said. "They don't dive more than three or four feet. You gotta see something to want to dive, and they don't even see it."

And the 50 attempts recorded using the 27-foot-long steel chute were actually questionable, Cook said, because "if a bird even looked like he was taking the bait, we recorded it; in reality, it's zero (the number of attempts)."

Consultant Nigel Brothers was instrumental in the development of the chute in the mid-1990s in New Zealand. It was initially tested in 1996 in Australia and cost $2,000 to $3,000.

"This was a particularly exciting trip," Brothers said. "It's the first time the chute is being given a rigid test of its effectiveness in avoiding seabird fatalities. And it's been excellent."

Partners in the experiment include the Hawaii Longline Association, the National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program, the National Marine Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratory, Albi Save (the Australian company that manufactures the chute), Capt. Jerry Ray and the Katy Mary crew, the Western Pacific Council, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.