Posted on: Sunday, October 13, 2002

Fishery panel may consider permits, reports on catches

Associated Press

An advisory panel is calling for consideration of permit and reporting requirements for all fisheries in the U.S. exclusive economic zone in the Western Pacific Region.

The recommendation to the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council would include Hawai'i's recreational fishermen, who now don't need permits and don't need to report catches.

The council's 40-member advisory panel, which wound up three days of meetings yesterday in Honolulu, asked the council to consider linking permit and reporting requirements to vessel registration in Hawai'i.

Without the additional information, fishery managers have an incomplete estimate of the volume of fish caught and the range of species taken by different fishing gear, the panel said.

For Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, the panel suggested the council work with local fishing communities to acquire needed fishery information, such as the use of voluntary logbooks.

The panel is composed of recreational, commercial, indigenous and subsistence fishermen and other U.S. Pacific islanders concerned with fisheries in federal waters, generally three to 200 miles offshore.