TO DEFEND SEA TURTLES

HONOLULU—Earthjustice, the nonprofit, public-interest law firm, filed suit this week in Federal District Court against the National Marine Fisheries Service, that last week allowed expansion of the Hawaii longline swordfish fishery—with a dramatic increase in allowable take of threatened and endangered sea turtles.

The Snorkel Bob Foundation of Hawaii today pledged $10,000 to sponsor that litigation.

Robert Wintner, Executive Director of the Snorkel Bob Foundation, said, “The opening line of our mission statement stipulates that we will defend against incidental kill of marine species, so this litigation is compulsory for us. Earthjustice is not a conservation outfit soliciting grant money and selling vague concepts, but a results-oriented law firm. The plaintiffs in this case—Kahea, Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Center for Biodiversity are also proven achievers in the field. We know these organizations and stand firmly beside them.”

Wintner added that this case will highlight outdated ocean management policy—policy that must change to allow for ocean recovery. “The oceans can no longer provide limitless protein for growing human populations. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is now part of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA), a bureau in the Department of Commerce. That means ocean management is based on revenue, and not on recovery. These agencies should be part of the Department of the Interior, where conservation and recovery are primary management factors.”

The Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) originated this recommendation that the swordfish fishery be expanded with a dramatic increase on incidental take of endangered turtles. The HLA wants to catch maximum fish and take more turtles too, as necessary. The HLA recommendation then went to the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WESPAC), where vested interest in increased revenue also prevails. WESPAC advanced the recommendation that the swordfish fishery be expanded. WESPAC uses the word “conservation” more than most agencies in its communications, but many of its members and officers are significantly vested in commercial extraction. The WESPAC recommendation then went to NMFS—NMFS has a history of granting WESPAC recommendations.

Wintner summarized the Snorkel Bob Foundation’s motivation. “This effort to disregard and override the evidence—and global consensus—began some time ago, with the wheels of bureaucracy grinding slowly. The Commerce Department employs thirty thousand people, and like a giant ocean liner, it does not change course quickly. Now we have a new administration, with an agenda reflecting long-term management policies for ocean recovery. Now we go to the judicial arena, with Earthjustice representing exactly what it’s named for. I call this money well spent.”

Aloha Senators,

I’m writing to you because you will soon be faced with many decisions regarding sea-cage aquaculture in Hawaii. Sea-cage aquaculture is now a kind of “gold rush”, and I would be very sad if the sea-cage farmers were allowed to do to Hawaii what they have done to my native coast, British Columbia (Canada) as well as to Norway, Scotland, Western Ireland and eastern Canada.

The main problem with sea-cage farming of finfish is that when practiced on the industrial scale that operators claim to require in order to make a profit, it eventually destroys surrounding wild fish stocks.

To understand why this happens, recall how disease is controlled in wild fish. A diseased wild fish is weaker and slower than a healthy fish. It has a harder time making a living, and it is more easily caught by predators. It doesn’t live very long.

Fish in a sea-cage, on the other hand, are fed daily by farmers – they don’t have to “work for a living” so being weak doesn’t cause them to starve – and they are protected from predators by their cage. When they fall ill they remain alive for a very long time, shedding pathogen into the surrounding waters. The higher levels of pathogen cause wild fish to decline.

The decline of wild fish is not instantaneous. Wild fish populations have large natural fluctuations, and a slow decline is hard to separate from these fluctuations.

If there are just a few sea-cages, the decline of wild fish is moderate. But farmers never stop at just a few cages. They always claim they need economies of scale in order to make a profit, so they keep adding cages. With enough sea-cages, the equilibrium level of local wild fish (of the same or related species) declines to zero.

But it isn’t just the wild fish that suffer. Farmers keep adding sea cages until epidemics take place, and epidemics frequently cause catastrophic loss of farm fish as well as wild fish. Nature has an effectively inexhaustible supply of diseases. Treatment often consists of antibiotics or toxic chemical therapeutants in the feed. The losses caused by epidemics eventually force local sea-cage operators to sell out to large multi-nationals such as the Norwegian corporation Marine Harvest, whose salmon farms are destroying wild pink and chum salmon on the coast of British Columbia.

Sea-cage farmers like to say that their production model is no different from production of terrestrial animals such as hogs, but really it is very different. Wild fish and farm fish inhabit the same water, which passes freely through the mesh of the sea-cage. The terrestrial equivalent of a sea-cage would be an industrial hog farm with wild hogs strolling freely through the barn.

Techno-optimism is a large part of the gold-rush mentality in sea-cage farming, and farmers always claim that disease problems can be solved by technology. In the countries I mentioned above, development of vaccines is heavily subsidized by governments, but is seldom entirely successful. The time required for development of even a moderately useful vaccine is never less than six years, and during this interval losses can be very great.

It’s important to point out that traditional Hawaiian fishpond aquaculture did not have the disease problems discussed above. Hawaiian fish ponds included kaku (barracuda) which ate up diseased fish before their disease could spread to other fish. Also the ama’ama (mullet) raised in fishponds could position themselves in the fresh water that welled up from the bottom of the pond, thus ridding themselves of disease-causing parasites. (Most external parasites of marine fishes cannot tolerate fresh water.)

A truly sustainable finfish aquaculture would mimic Hawaiian fishponds as far as possible. It would feature herbivorous fish that eat seaweed grown in the pen, and it would include predators to control disease.

There are other issues in sea-cage farming that you should know about, but the disease issue explained above is the most important. Mahalo for your service to the people of Hawaii.

-Neil Frazer
Professor of Geophysics
Department of Geology and Geophysics
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST)
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
808-956-3724
“Professors are not hired to echo the conventional wisdom.”
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/asp/GG/people/people.asp?ID=2215

I want to thank Russell Sparks of the state Division of Aquatic Resources for his efforts to protect our reefs and reef fish at Kahekili in West Maui (The Maui News, May 6).

We all understand that while development run-off and injection wells that damage the reefs are outside of DAR’s control, the issuing of commercial fishing permits is the responsibility of the Division of Aquatic Resources.

Which do you think would be more beneficial to our reefs? The banning of the recreational fisherman who take only small amounts for home use or the commercial aquarium fisherman who, with permits, use lay nets to catch every living thing on our reefs without limits? Or the commercial fisherman who is literally permitted to use scuba tanks to catch manini, palani and uhu at night without limit? They fill coolers with these sleeping fish, the same kinds of fish Sparks is trying to protect.

Why not have bag limits for fishermen, ban the commercial aquarium fishermen and stop issuing permits for this destructive practice. I witnessed the amount of fish these commercial aquarium fisherman took over a period of five days in a week.

After being stopped the first day at La Perouse by Department of Land and Natural Resources enforcement officers, they returned to catch every possible fish for the next week with a permit issued by the Division of Aquatic Resources in hand. It’s a shame.

Pat Borge
Makena

I have been a frequent tourist to Hawaii since 1983 and usually go to the Big Island, but I visited Maui last week. I was shocked to see how degraded and suffocated your coral reefs have become in the past three years, and saw no apparent effort to stop the damage.

And where are the fish? They are few and small, and I wonder when they’ll be gone entirely. I swam about four hours every day, April 20-27, on the Kihei side, and saw these problems all the way from Ahihi-Kinau to Charley Young Beach.

Unfortunately, I saw the same problems last December when I stayed at Napili for a week and swam 3-4 miles a day, eventually covering the inshore reef all the way from Honolua to just below the highway tunnel – much cloudier water, fewer fish, and reefs covered with the same silt (from golf courses?) which added up to, ultimately, a depressing trip.

I am so sorry to say that I won’t be back, and I will encourage all my friends to go to the Big Island instead. It’s heartbreaking, because I have always loved Maui and the aloha of its people. Best wishes, and mahalo for the happy memories.

Sherrill Futrell
Davis, Calif.