Hawai'i Fisheries Initiative - The Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs

(a baited bottom camera) and Electronic
(aka Ecological) Acoustic Recorders (EARs)
to assess deep-water communities and
monitor vessel traffic; and replenishment
efforts such as captive rearing and release
of opakapaka. 317
Still, Wespac’s criticism of the state’s
closed-area management plan continued –
that fishing effort is the problem, closed
areas may simply displace fishing effort,
noncompliance is an issue, and that closed
areas may generate a “have/have not”
problem due to the proximity to shore of
the closed areas (presumably, commercial
fishers can afford to travel farther to fishing
grounds than can recreational/sustenance
fishers, who would be shut out in these
closed areas). 318
In 2007, NMFS determined a 24 percent
reduction (from 2004 total catch) in
bottomfish fishing mortality to be
necessary, and Wespac long-range
management options currently under
consideration include seasonal and area
closures, limiting the total allowable
catch, implementing a limited-access
program, and requiring both commercial
and recreational fishers to obtain federal
permits and submit federal logbooks
(regardless of fishing in state or federal
waters). 319 “In the face of this long history
of state inaction and/or inappropriate
action, NMFS has now been directed by
Congress to evaluate the consistency of the
state’s bottomfish management program
with the [federal] FMP … . In the event
of inconsistency, Congress has directed
NMFS to implement measures to cure the
inconsistency, including implementing
a federal permit program and reporting
program.” The council affirmed that its
available evidence indicates that the state
MHI bottomfish program is not being
effectively implemented or enforced. 320
The bottomfish fishery was closed for
several months in 2007, and will again be
closed from May through August 2008. 321
History and Status of Reef Fish,
Ornamentals, and Coral Fisheries
Hawai‘i’s 410,000 acres of coral reef
comprise nearly 85 percent of all coral reef
ecosystems under U.S. jurisdiction.
The state’s coral reefs ecosystems are home
to 5,000 species of marine plants and
animals, many of which are found only
in Hawai‘i. In 2006, DAR reported strong
numbers of juvenile near-shore fish –
oama (yellowstripe goatfish), aholehole
(Hawaiian flagtail), sardines, moi li‘i
(juvenile moi/threadfin), and halalu (bigeye
scad). If there are good survival rates
among these “recruits,” nearshore fisheries
could be “very productive” in the next year
or so. Fishermen, some participating in a
state tagging project, reported not seeing
moi li‘i in these numbers since the 1960s. 322
In 2004, the economic value of coral reefs
was measured at $364 million per year,
but that may be a conservative estimate. 323
The health of the coral reefs affects not
just the fishing industry, but the tourism
industry as well. The major threats to the
coral reefs are overfishing (one problem is
that reef fish are being caught as juveniles,
before they reproduce), land-based
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