June 28, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council fired back at a local non-profit news service when the Council met this week in Honolulu.
The online news outlet Civil Beat recently published a lengthy three-part series suggesting members of the Council’s Executive Committee engaged in decision-making for self-profit. The non-profit media service says, “Our goal is to challenge our leaders to do better. We are the watchdogs of the public’s trust and we take seriously the mission to educate our citizens on important public issues.”
However, the Council Executive Committee saw it differently, according to a WPRFMC press release.
Vice Chair John Gourley, representing the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, said the Civil Beat articles implied that funding he received from the Sustainable Fisheries Fund for fish biosampling continued after he became a Council member. Honolulu Civil Beat statements about Gourley were included in a section titled “Conflicts of Interest.” Gourley said he received no such funding after he became a Council member and there was no conflict of interest. He said he feels Civil Beat has possibly damaged his reputation and that of his environmental consulting business.
Council Vice Chair Michael Duenas, Guam, said the news outlet also got it wrong when it wrote about the development of an American Disability Act-compliant fishing platform. Civil Beat said Duenas was behind the push to develop the platform, but Duenas said it was then-Gov. Eddie Calvo who favored the platform and members of the Guam Organization of Saltwater Anglers who were the driving force to get it built.
“What these articles and the routine criticism by special interest groups overlook is the many successes the Council has had in balancing the complexities of environmental stewardship and commercial use, which are both recognized as important considerations by the [Magnuson-Stevens Act],” the Council said in a June 20 response to Civil Beat. “The Council’s mission is to ensure fisheries are managed at optimum yield, consistent with the conservation needs of fish stocks and protected species. To that end, the Council is doing its job and doing it well.”
The news outlet printed the Council’s response but edited out some of the comments directed at correcting inaccuracies (the full Council response can be found here ). It also, according to Council Chair Archie Soliai, American Samoa, insisted on modifying his response to questions from Civil Beat.
Civil Beat asked Soliai to address these and other allegations against individual Council members and contractors but Civil Beat did not publish that section of his response. However, it is posted on the Council’s website at www.wpcouncil.org.
Council Vice Chair Dean Sensui, Hawaii, producer of Hawaii Goes Fishing and a 25-year veteran of journalism, said, to say someone “did not beat his wife today and has remained sober for the past three months” may be the truth but such statements suggest “guilt” by omission.
In an ongoing effort to correct the news outlet’s claims, the Council plans to send a letter to the Hawai’i Board of Land and Natural Resources to address inaccuracies published in Civil Beat. For example, Civil Beat reported that bottomfish “are in significant decline,” when, in fact, the most recent stock assessment by the National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center shows the stock as healthy. PIFSC Director Mike Seki has even described it as “flourishing,” noted Council member Edwin Watamura, who served for three years on a working group comprised of bottomfish fishermen, scientists and Hawai’i Division of Aquatic Resources staff to refine the stock assessment.
Watamura said for Civil Beat to suggest that Council Executive Director Kitty Simonds forced the State of Hawai’i to remove four of the state’s Bottomfish Restricted Fishing Areas was unfair. Watamura said the Hawaii Fishermen’s Alliance for Conservation and Tradition, bottomfish fishermen, State legislators and many others had advocated for opening of all of the BRFAs.
In other action this week, the Council:
-requested NMFS provide the Council and its Scientific and Statistical Committee the new abundance estimates for the pelagic stock of false killer whales based on a 2017 survey of the US exclusive economic zone around Hawai’i. The Council additionally asked for an update on the date potential for reopening the Southern Exclusion Zone, taking into consideration the new abundance estimates for the pelagic stock. The 132,000-square-mile SEZ was closed to the Hawai’i deep-set longline fleet on Feb. 22, 2019, after the fishery interacted with two false killer whales. Closure of the SEZ coupled with the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which prohibits fishing in the U.S. EEZ out to 200 miles from shore throughout the entire 1,200-mile Northwestern Hawaiian Islands chain, leaves only 17 percent of the U.S. EEZ around Hawai’i open to the local longline fishery.
-recommended an annual catch target of 25,491 pounds for Hawai’i Kona crab during fishing years 2020 to 2023. The fishery effort and participation levels have been in decline over decades. While the 2018 stock assessment indicates a maximum sustainable yield for the commercial fishery of 25,869 pounds, recent average catches have been approximately 2,256 pounds. The no-take of female Kona crabs coupled with the minimum harvest size has deterred fishermen from entering the fishery, several members noted. Council Member and fisherman McGrew Rice said all the Kona crab fishermen he knows are about 75 years old. Ryan Okano, Hawai’i DAR aquatic biologist representing Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said DAR favors removal of the regulation forbidding the take of female Kona crabs, but the regulation was made by the Hawai’i State Legislature so would require legislative action to change. The Council reiterated its previous recommendation requesting DAR work with the Legislature in removing the no-take of female statute to allow the redevelopment of the commercial Kona crab fishery.
-will encourage DAR to establish a process through Chapter 91 of the Hawai’i Revised Statutes to close state waters once the ACT of Kona crab is projected to be reached in order to attain consistency in the management of the stock between the state and federal waters. The Council will also encourage the state, as part of the Chapter 91 process, to consider bringing the monthly reporting requirement to trip level similar to the Hawai’i fishery for seven deep-water bottomfish species. Under this proposal, DAR would provide the Council and NMFS monthly summaries of numbers caught, pounds caught, number of trips and number of licenses to track fisheries performance for in-season monitoring for the Kona crab fishery, relative to its ACT. The Council recommended DAR provide similar trip reporting for uku (Aprion virescens or green jobfish) relative to its annual catch limit and that it reinitiate the collection of fishery data for crustaceans from the non-commercial fisheries as part of the certification process of the Hawaii Marine Recreational Fishing Surveys.
-requested NMFS provide regular updates at future Council meetings on the status of recovery plan implementation for Pacific green turtle populations, including the outlook for considering downlisting of distinct population segments occurring in the Marianas and American Samoa.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.