Hawaii FEP - Western Pacific Fishery Council

levels for all fisheries, and a provision requiring State consistency with federal fisherymanagement plans for Hawaii’s bottomfish fisheries.• Updated bottomfish habitat mapping undertaken by PIFSC with resulting estimates ofbottomfish habitat in federal waters, as opposed to state, being greatly increased. Currentestimates place 53 percent of habitat in federal waters with 47 percent in state waters(Parke 2007)• The State of Hawaii changed its bottomfish closed areas since the Council took itsoriginal final action on Amendment 14. The changes have resulted in reduced benefits (anet gain of 2 percent) to be gained by these closed areas as compared to those originallyanalyzed as part of Amendment 14.• The State of Hawaii’s current data collection system for the recreational fishery does notresult in an adequate estimation of the recreational catch. However, the State is prohibitedfrom amending its rules to require adequate data collection, such as vessel trip reports,without legislative action, whereas, the Council and the Federal managers can do thiswith the MSA as the statutory basis. In addition, the State’s commercial fishery datasystem provides extremely generalized spatial information which is of little use to fisheryscientists and managers.At its 137 th meeting (March 13-16, 2007 in Honolulu) the Council reviewed a range ofalternatives and their anticipated environmental impacts and took the following actions:Relating to MHI bottomfish overfishing:1. Recommended that a 5 month seasonal closure be implemented through State and Federalemergency rule making in federal and state waters for onaga, ehu, gindai, opakapaka,kalekale, lehi and hapuupuu (the deep-7 bottomfish species) harvested around the MainHawaiian Islands from May 1 through September 30, 2007.2. Directed Council staff to begin analysis of the management measures detailed below forCouncil consideration at the June meeting.Relating to coordination and information collection:(1) That the State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) commercial marinelicense and reporting system be used as the primary tool for capturing commercialbottomfish catch and effort information, with the following changes implemented byOctober 1, 2007:a. A bottomfish reporting form be developed to allow reporting of longitude andlatitude position information to the nearest minute or one (1) nautical mile. Catchlocation data will be held confidential and not used for enforcement action.b. Reporting form be filed on a per trip basis, not on a monthly basis.(2) That the DAR seek to implement a seafood dealer licensing program to supplement theseafood dealer reporting program. In addition, the dealer reporting program should bemodified to allow for tracking bottomfish from origin/source to retailer.100