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Water Ways
Ray Pendleton
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These FADs don't go out of style
Webster's Dictionary defines a "fad" as a temporary fashion or manner of conduct, but for Hawaii's fishermen, there is a "FAD" that has been around for more than 25 years.
The FAD I'm referring to is the acronym for Fish Aggregating Devices and as FADs act like fish magnets, they have become nearly indispensable for offshore anglers and particularly our charter boat industry. It has long been noted that nearly anything floating at or near the ocean's surface tends to attract fish. So in 1977 the Honolulu Laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service anchored a few experimental rafts off Oahu, Lanai and West Hawaii, primarily in an attempt to help increase the commercial catch of aku (skipjack tuna).
The experiment succeeded so well that Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Aquatic Resources was able to convince our state legislature to appropriate funds to establish a statewide system of FADs in 1979.
A year later, the DAR designed, built and deployed 26 buoy-like FADs around the main Hawaiian Islands, between 2.4 and 25 miles offshore and anchored in depths of 480 to 9,060 feet.
Then, in 1996, in cooperation with the DAR, the FAD program was taken over by the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology of the University of Hawaii and became largely underwritten with federal funds from the Sport Fishing Restoration Act, according to program director Dr. Kim Holland.
"These federal funds are derived from taxes on boat fuel, fishing equipment, importation of pleasure craft, etcetera," Holland told me recently.
"The FAD network is administered on a daily basis through the HIMB, with most of the logistics supported at the UH Marine Center at Pier 45 in Honolulu Harbor," Holland said.
There are 55 FADs currently in the system and, with an average lifespan of about three years, between 10 and 20 must be replaced each year, Holland said. The cost of building and anchoring a FAD varies from $5,000 to $7,000, with a majority of that cost attributed to the large amount of rope needed in such deep water.
Still, Holland noted, they have learned that the depth of the water doesn't impact a FAD's lifespan, but rather that windward FADs don't last as long as those on the leeward side of the islands.
There are no good statistics about how much fish is caught around the FADs, Holland said, because fishermen don't report their catch with that much precision or reliability.
"But judging by the screams we hear when a FAD goes missing, we know they are important to the local fishing community," Holland said.
Another benefit to our state, Holland added, comes from the research dollars coming into Hawaii because UH has become a world leader in scientific research focused on FADs and the fish that move around the FAD network.
To learn more about Hawaii's FAD system, you can check out its very informative Web site at www.hawaii.edu/HIMB/FADS.