Posted on: Monday, April 11, 2005

Sharks draw scrutiny to fish farm

Associated Press

Leeward O'ahu residents say they have been seeing more sharks since a fish farm growing moi took up residence about two miles off shore at 'Ewa Beach almost six years ago, said William Aila, a resident and fisherman.

Since companies have approached the Wai'anae community in the past year with plans for aquaculture farms off the coast, residents want to know if they should be concerned, he said. "We know that any structure attracts predators. ... I want to know, where do the predators go once they are attracted to this area?" Aila said.

On Friday, state lawmakers approved a state-financed study of sharks off the Leeward Coast to learn if the fish farm is bringing the creatures closer to shore.

Conducting such a study might be helpful since similar farms are being considered for other parts of the Islands, bringing the potential for more jobs and investment in Hawai'i, Aila said.

Another deep-sea fish farm opened last month a half-mile off Keahole Point on the Big Island's Kona Coast. And more could be in store for the rest of the nation and beyond.

Offshore fish farming, in which submerged pens containing thousands of fish are tended by divers, is limited commercially to waters within state jurisdiction, where permits have been easier to get. But in December, President Bush proposed making it easier to put fish farms off the nation's coasts.

Sharks have been spotted around the 'Ewa Beach farm's four pens, which are each about the size of a small house and anchored in 150 feet of water.

But the sharks have never caused trouble for workers at the facility, are seen only occasionally and are exclusively of a species not known to be aggressive toward humans — the sandbar shark, said Randy Cates, owner of the company that runs the cages, Cates International Inc.

Cates said the presence of sharks around his fish cages isn't surprising. The cages function as an artificial reef and create a reef ecosystem, which naturally includes the predators.

"Will they attract sharks? Yes, they will. But so will everything else that you put in the ocean that's an artificial reef," said Cates, who added that he would assist the state on any study.

The managers of the nation's two other longstanding deep-sea fish farms, one in New Hampshire and another in Puerto Rico, also have reported sharks among the marine species attracted to their cages, but no problems, said Kate Naughten, outreach coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's aquaculture program.

The jury is still out as to whether artificial reefs just bring together species that are in the area anyway, said Randy Honebrink, spokesman for the state Shark Task Force.