Shark quota
set by regional
fishery council

Hawaii's long-line fleet is
limited to 50,000 amid concern
over finning

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii's long-line fishing fleet will be required to reel in fewer sharks under a quota approved this week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.

The council decision on Wednesday came the same day a federal judge said an injunction against long-line fishing in Hawaii is warranted while an environmental impact assessment is done.

The council, which manages waters 3 to 200 miles offshore from Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, voted 11-2 to establish an annual quota of 50,000 sharks for the Hawaii long-line fleet. And members agreed to adjust the quota annually, based on the health of the sharks.

The Hawaii long-line fishery comprises a fleet of 110 vessels that catch mostly deep-ocean fish, such as high-grade swordfish and tuna. The annual value of their catch is in excess of $50 million.

Last year, about 60,000 of the 100,000 sharks accidentally caught in the long-line gear were killed for their fins.

Council member Frank Farm said the quota is a precautionary measure which the council hopes will reduce catch levels of sharks back to the average taken by the fleet over the past three years.

The council notes that catch rates of Hawaii and Japanese long-liners over the past decades do not show that the North Pacific blue shark stock is being overfished. A stock assessment on the fish is expected by the National Marine Fisheries Service in spring 2000.

Shark-finning is considered wasteful by the Fisheries Service, the U.S. government and other countries. Fins, used for a popular soup, make up about 5 percent of a blue shark's weight but represent about 85 percent of its economic value.

Council Chairman James Cook, a commercial fisherman, said the position of the fisheries service and many environmental groups to ban shark-finning by American boats is unfair because the proposed ban ignores the import and sale of fins from sharks kept for the same reason by foreign boats.

The state Legislature this year deferred a bill that would have banned shark-finning in Hawaiian waters.

Meanwhile, the council adopted rules this past Wednesday to reduce the number of albatrosses caught in long-line gear. Captains and boat owners will now be required to attend an annual Fisheries Service workshop on protected species.

Also, boats fishing beyond a designated point north of Hawaii will have to use two or more approved ways to reduce the number of seabirds caught in the long-lines. Those options include a blue-dyed bait, strategic discard of unused bait and fish parts, towing a deterrent buoy or line, night setting, a bait shooter and weighted lines.