Fisheries director in Isles to hear issues

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

Bill Hogarth believes that fisheries management can bring back overfished stocks and can protect endangered species, although he's having trouble convincing some environmental groups of that.

Hogarth, the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, is in Hawai'i this week for the first of eight meetings nationwide through Sept. 18, being held in conjunction with regional fishery management councils. He is trying to get a handle on the issues faced by the agency he's headed since September 2002.

"When I took over there was so much controversy. I think we really need to spend more time working with folks and on making our agency more transparent," he said.

One problem the agency faces is competing duties. It oversees fisheries with an interest in promoting sustainable harvests of marine life, while also being required to preserve endangered species and protect marine mammals. Often, NOAA Fisheries has clashed with environmental groups such as Earthjustice, which feel that the agency favors fishing interests over those of threatened non-catch species such as turtles and seals.

In the Pacific, Earthjustice used the courts to stop the longline swordfish fishery from operating as long as it continued to occasionally hook turtles.

Hogarth said that the Pacific generally has healthy stocks of fish, and elsewhere, he believes sound management can let fishery stocks recover.

"A lot of our stocks have recovered. We have 77 overfished stocks, but 25 stocks have been removed from the overfished stocks. I think people are realizing that management does work," he said.

One of the key frustrations for U.S. fishery officials and U.S. fishing fleets is that many foreign fleets continue to fish waters where American ships have been prohibited.

"Fishermen are frustrated. They see that foreign vessels are fishing areas where they used to fish, and they're sitting idle," Hogarth said.