Fishermen Question Plan to Protect Whales

Pete Dupuy, one of about 30 fishermen who ply the waters off the Ventura coast for lucrative swordfish and thresher shark, may soon find his livelihood cut back by a federal move to protect whales and other mammals caught in drift nets.

Dupuy, 60, who operates his boat, Karen Marie, out of Ventura Harbor, said his fellow fishermen have been good stewards of the $7.2-million West Coast shark and swordfish industry. He is concerned that the government will end up punishing them unfairly.

“There are more kills by ship strikes than ever caught in these nets. If we look at the overall picture, it’s a very, very small percent,” said the Tarzana resident.

The National Marine Fisheries Service established a group called the Pacific Offshore Cetacean Take Reduction Team to conduct a study and develop a plan.

The group of fishermen, environmentalists and scientists aims primarily to protect pilot, sperm and beaked whales caught in nets. For example, according to the NMFS, an average of 39 beaked whales were taken each year between 1993 and 1995.

The cetacean team hopes to achieve a goal of zero incidental catches of the whales and some other marine mammals by the year 2001, with aggressive enforcement, and by buying back as many fishing permits as possible. It is also helping fishers modify their nets with devices designed to warn the mammals of danger.

Penalties for intentionally killing or injuring a protected marine mammal range from a fine to jail time. Most of the time, the deaths are accidental. However, one Southern California fisherman received six months in jail and a $10,000 fine for intentionally killing a sea lion.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is gathering public comment on the proposal through March 31. Once approved, the final plan will be published in the Federal Register.

Team member Hanna Bernard, who runs the Maui-based Hawai’i Wildlife Fund, spent the early part of her career in Ventura County as one of the first state Department of Fish and Game observers.

It was Bernard’s responsibility to ensure that fishermen around the Channel Islands caught only the species allowed by law. When marine mammals or other endangered species became entangled in drift nets used by shark and swordfish boats, Bernard was often on board to see that they kept records of the “bycatch” and properly disposed of the carcasses.

Fourteen years later, Bernard is again focusing her attention on the safety of marine mammals as a member of the federal team.

“The goal is to bring the bycatch close to zero. The environmental community and the fishing community hammered out a compromise to the Marine Mammal Protection Act which allows for a level approaching zero,” she said in a phone interview from her office in Lahaina.

In addition to conducting workshops in the area, the team required fishermen to outfit their nets with sound-emitting devices known as pingers, a plan that has been in place since August, said Victoria Cornish, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist in Washington, D.C.

“The pinger is a 10-inch-tall canister that emits a high-frequency sound. It’s intended to wake up the mammals to the fact that there’s a net in front of them,” she said. The noise is believed to turn the creatures away from the net, she said.

The pingers seem to have the opposite effect on the catch.

“We think the swordfish and sharks are attracted to them. At the least, they are not not attracted,” said take reduction team member Tony West, co-director of the Ventura-based Federation of Independent Seafood Harvesters (FISH).

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The experiment has shown that bycatch is four times less for nets using pingers. The equipment costs about $1,600 per vessel.

Another strategy involves asking the state Department of Fish and Game to not reissue fishing permits that have lapsed, and buying back permits from fishers who make few trips.

Just how much the buy-back program will cost and how it will be funded are still being investigated, Cornish said. Observers say the cost of buying back some permits could be hundreds of thousands of dollars--enough to cover a fisherman’s investment.

“We’re not looking to drive out active fishermen,” Cornish said. “What we’re trying to do is target those fishermen that land only the minimum fish to keep their permits alive.”

The industry has taken steps to ensure the survival of the marine populations, according to Dupuy, a co-director of FISH.

“Most of these fish or mammals have traits like we do, they do the same thing year after year. The gray whale migrates down the coast to Mexico every year and they go back up the coast every year,” Dupuy said.

“When we started finding we were fishing in the area where they were migrating, we moved the nets out of the routes. Consequently, we have reduced the amount of gray whales that are taken.”

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He supports the pinger program, but scoffs at the buy-back concept.

“It solves the problem just as if you had cancer of the finger, you cut off your arm,” he said. “The permit buy-back program in the long run will hurt the U.S. fishing industry because any time a product’s not caught or made by us, it’s caught or made elsewhere.”

But something has to be done, Bernard said.

“We understand these are people whose livelihood is threatened, and they’re scared. But commercial scale fishing has just taken its toll on the environment. This season is extremely important for the fishermen because we will be looking at their success of complying with the bycatch reduction,” Bernard said.

“If these strategies don’t work, the team will discuss other ways of reducing the fishing effort. The federal government will step in even more.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FYI

To comment on the plan, write to Chief, Marine Mammal Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226.