Group sues over longline fishing

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

The environmental group Earthjustice is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service, saying the agency has failed to follow its own regulations in protecting false killer whales from Hawai'i's longline fishing industry.

Earthjustice says the Marine Fisheries' research has shown that even one death or serious injury to a false killer whales each year as a result of longline fishing hurts the species' ability to sustain itself.

But data collected by the fisheries service indicates that in recent years longline fishing has seriously injured or killed an average of seven false killer whales a year, according to Earthjustice.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court yesterday, Earthjustice clients Hui Malama I Kohola, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network seek a court order that would require the fisheries service to put the Hawai'i longline fishery under its "category 1" heading instead of the present "category 3."

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said the change in categories would require the Hawai'i longline fleet and Fisheries Service to come up with a specific plan to limit the number of false killer whales that are caught unintentionally. "This is not an anti-longline fishing lawsuit, this is a pro-environmental lawsuit," Henkin said.

False killer whales, which are a type of dolphin, are a protected species but are not on the endangered list.

Alvin Katekaru, acting administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Region, had not seen the lawsuit and declined to comment at length yesterday afternoon.

"I do know that the (Fisheries Service) Pacific scientific research group is meeting right now in La Jolla, Calif., and one subject they are dealing with is updating information from assessments," Katekaru said.

Henkin said the agency's own "stock assessment reports" compiled by Fisheries Service observers who go to sea on longline fishing boats were used to calculate the figures.

Scott Barrows, owner of two longline fishing boats and a member of the Hawai'i Longline Association, challenged the Earthjustice numbers.

"I know there are a lot more of them in the water than there used to be," said Barrows, who has fished in Hawai'i for 28 years, the past 18 years as a longliner.

"In the past, maybe once or twice a year a false killer whale would go down the line and eat every fish on it. Now, it happens almost once every trip," said Barrows, who said he was commenting only as a fisherman and not as a representative of the Longline Association.

"In more than 20 years of fishing in Hawai'i ... I've never caught a whale, wouldn't want to catch one and don't know anybody who has," Barrows said.

Reach David Waite at 525-8030 or dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.