Fishing council votes to ban wire leaders for Hawaii fishery

The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council is recommending the prohibition of wire leaders for Hawaii’s deep-set longline fishery to protect the oceanic whitetip shark, and now that the U.S. has made the move to protect the species, advocates hope that it will persuade international agencies to do the same.

The council, also known as Wespac, made the decision to ban wire leaders — and replace them with monofilament nylon leaders — during a meeting Tuesday. The move would reduce post-release injury and death to oceanic whitetip sharks, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, that get hooked on longline fishing hooks.

Wespac also recommended that all longline vessels operating under the Pacific Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan be required to remove as much trailing gear from caught sharks as possible.

The amendments will be reviewed by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

But it’s clear, for those who advocated for the rule changes, that the ultimate goal is to persuade international entities to take up measures to help the sharks.

“In the absence of our fleet — the total elimination of the Hawaii longline fishery — the WCPO (Western and Central Pacific Ocean) stock will only see a minor increase of 2-4% in terms of stock rebuilding in the next 20 or 30 years,” said Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association. “It’s just indicative of the small impact we’re having in a much larger Pacific Ocean. And really the focus … needs to be on international fleets.”

U.S. longline fleets catch just about 6% of oceanic whitetip sharks in the WCPO, with the rest being from international fleets.

“These changes reflect the U.S.’s willingness to take action to conserve vulnerable species, and we hope that it moves forward with similar issues at international fora,” said KerriLynn Miller, an associate manager for international fisheries with The Pew Charitable Trusts, in a statement.

In November, HLA announced it would voluntarily begin switching from wire leaders to monofilament ones for its deep-set longline vessels, and is weeks away from a complete transition, Kingma said.

Earthjustice, which supported the council’s moves, said that more needs to be done, and asked the council to consider prohibiting the use of the shallowest hooks used in the lines of deep-set longline fisheries.

“The council should not prematurely reject a shallow-hook alternative due to potential costs, unless the council can first determine that monofilament leaders alone would be equally protective or would achieve the reductions needed to protect and rebuild the population,” said Connor Lie-Spahn, legal intern for Earthjustice, during Tuesday’s meeting.

Removing shallow hooks would further reduce the post-release mortality of oceanic whitetip sharks in Hawaii’s deep-set longline fishery but would also have a significant impact on the fishery’s annual revenue.