By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

Lay gillnets are getting bigger and more destructive when it comes to Hawai'i's nearshore reef fish populations, according to the authors of a new report.

The Pacific Fisheries Coalition, a project of the Hawai'i Audubon Society, produced the report, which calls for stricter regulation and more stringent enforcement. It is timed to influence the state Division of Aquatic Resources, which is considering changes to state lay gillnet fishing regulations.

"The reason there aren't any reef fish out there is primarily because of lay gillnets," said Linda Paul, of the coalition. She wrote the gillnet report —Êwhich is published in the April 2003 issue of the Hawai'i Audubon newsletter, 'Elepaio — with Bob Endreson of the Hawai'i Fishermen's Foundation and William Aila, Hawaiian fisherman and Wai'anae Small Boat Harbor master.

"The bycatch may amount to 15 times the volume of the targeted catch," the report said.

Lay gillnets are banned in most states. In Hawai'i, they can be left in the water no longer than four hours, and must be visually inspected after two hours. That's still long enough for a snagged sea turtle to drown, the authors said. And even if nets are left in the water longer than the legal four hours, there is little likelihood that the netters will be caught, since the state has only 39 enforcement officers responsible for fish and game violations statewide on land and sea.

The gillnets old timers are familiar with, two or three feet deep and 20 or 30 feet long, have in many cases been augmented by massive nets used in deep water.

During the 1990s, fishermen began deploying very long monofilament lay gillnets in deep water. The nets can be 12 feet tall and are strung together into two-mile-long units. They are often set in water 200 or more feet deep just before sunset, and are retrieved using a hydraulic wheel.

Paul said she doubts the state's political will to ban gillnets, even though many anglers and divers oppose them. She recalls one pole fisherman telling gillnetters at a public hearing, "You guys catch more in one night than we do in our whole lives."

Honolulu attorney Evan Shirley testified at a gillnet meeting about snorkeling off Wai'alae Beach Park, where he enjoyed watching the reef fish, until one day when a gillnet was stretched from the shore to a man-made island.

"The next day, there were no fish in the water. None. Nada. Not any. The gillnet people had literally swept the ocean bay of all fish, large or small. This indiscriminate and wholesale fishing is wrong on so many levels — sustainability, environmental, morally, sportsmanship, and others — that it should be banned."

Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kaua'i bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Reach him at (808) 245-3074 or jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.