December 7, 2020 — The Hawaii Longline Association announced this week it’s making key changes to its fleet’s fishing equipment to help the imperiled oceanic whitetip shark stave off extinction.
Specifically, by July, crews aboard the fleet’s 140 or so vessels plan to replace the steel wire fishing leaders at the ends of their fishing lines with ones made from less-lethal nylon, or monofilament, according to HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma.
The move should at least somewhat help the endangered and overfished sharks, local fishing officials and industry watchdogs say, because they can bite through the nylon more easily and free themselves when they’re inadvertently caught.
It’s a much-welcomed change to aid a species that was abundant in the central and western Pacific Ocean before commercial fishing and demand for shark fins decimated their numbers, ocean conservationists say.