NCMC Conservation News

JUNE 29, 2010

TEN YEARS AFTER

The U.S. pelagic longline fleet likes to describe the way it fishes as "ecosystem-friendly," citing changes in gear and fishing practices to minimize fatal interactions with protected species. Of course, they claim all the credit for themselves, giving none to the conservation groups that forced them to change their ways.

The use of circle hooks was required fleet-wide after a June 2000 "jeopardy-finding" that longlining endangered the survival of sea turtles. The generally more-forgiving hooks, however, are not proven to reduce longline deaths of other non-target species. For threatened billfish and sharks, the most effective "modification" to longlining was closing bycatch hot-spots to the indiscriminate gear.

In response to a 2000 lawsuit by the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, the government closed 133,000 square miles of fishing grounds off South Carolina and both coasts of Florida to pelagic longlining the following year. The conservation benefits have been huge, saving tens of thousands of threatened blue and white marlin, sailfish, pelagic and large coastal sharks and hundreds of thousands of juvenile swordfish.

Although the closures helped rebuild Atlantic swordfish, U.S. landings last year were less than two-thirds our ICCAT quota. The industry blames the closed areas, but in fact, the U.S. hasn't landed its quota since 1994. In the 5-year period before the area closures were implemented, the number of active longline vessels decreased by 45%. Effort continued to drop off after 2000, but has been rising in recent years. In 2009, U.S. fishermen caught nearly the same tonnage of swordfish they took the year before the closures.

We'd Love to Change the World

Even so, the industry wants the U.S. to re-open closed areas to catch more swordfish, lest a portion of "our" fish be given to countries that don't longline in an "ecosystem-friendly" manner. But surely the answer's not to increase our own bycatch and discards of threatened species in order to keep that from happening?

Filling the U.S. quota will not end attempts by other nations to get a piece of the pie. ICCAT membership has doubled in the last two decades. Pressure to redistribute swordfish was not created by the U.S. underage, and it won't go away by laying claim to "our" fish. As highly migratory species they belong to the world. The world is changing. ICCAT is changing. It's in our interests to make change work to our advantage.

We are much better off arguing that re-allocation of a once-overfished stock, if it occurs, should be based on a nation's ability to fish "ecosystem-friendly," with a minimal bycatch of non-target species, including turtles, seabirds, billfish and sharks. To this end, the U.S. must keep its conservation measures in place - mandatory use of circle hooks and closure of bycatch hot-spots - measures we 'd like to spread throughout the Atlantic.

As for the future U.S. quota, we should accept a modest reduction, provided the beneficiaries of our sacrifice are developing coastal states that practice selective and sustainable fishing. In that way, we recognize the new realities at home and abroad.