Captains of Hawai‘i’s fishing fleet, faced with a 75-day shutdown tomorrow, urged federal officials yesterday to ask U.S. District Judge David Ezra to delay the interim closure until a permanent plan is developed to allow fishing and protect endangered turtles.
And they condemned the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed permanent alternative to restrict Hawai‘i’s swordfishing industry and close 2 million square miles of ocean to longlining for five months every year.
Fisheries service researchers John Hogarth and Rebecca Lent said they at least will re-examine the plan they must submit to U. S. District Judge David Ezra by April 1 to replace Ezra’s 75-day closure.
About 150 boat owners, marine supply company executives and fish market retailers jammed a Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council meeting yesterday. They denounced the service’s "biological opinion" which said turtles in jeopardy of extinction must be protected completely from swordfishing rigs, and from longlining from January to June, in a swath of ocean south of Hawai‘i.
The council asked the service to urge Ezra to delay the interim closing, and to implement an experimental fishery while the U.S. seeks international pacts to protect turtles.
Council members also asked the service to provide financial compensation for the industry here if closures prevent taking of catches estimated at $188,000 a day.
Mark Powell of the Center for Marine Conservation, which sued to protect the turtles, said the industry and the council brought the proposed restrictions on themselves by failing to act sooner.
James Cook, a longline fishing boat owner and former chairman of the council, agreed that action should have been taken sooner, but said the service’s new plan will devastate Hawai‘i’s fishing industry while leaving turtles prey to foreign fishing fleets which can ignore the restrictions.
Hawai‘i’s fleet sets only three percent of the longline hooks in the Pacific, and restrictions on it alone will not save turtles, Cook said.
Instead of removing Hawai‘i boats, Cook said, the service should use them in an experimental fishery to take tuna and swordfish with turtle-safe techniques which then could be required for any craft whose catch is sold in the United States.
State Sen. Rod Tam, D-13th (Downtown, Nu‘uanu, Sand Island) said resolutions are being drafted in both houses of the legislature to urge Judge Ezra to delay tomorrow’s fishery closure.
