A Way Out for Whales : Team Aims to Eliminate Accidental Catches of Sea Mammals

Fishers who ply the waters off the Southern California coast for lucrative swordfish and thresher shark are worried that their livelihoods will be cut back by a federal move to protect whales and other mammals caught in drift nets.

With an average of 39 beaked whales caught in nets each year, the National Marine Fisheries Service has established a group called the Pacific Offshore Cetacean Take Reduction Team to conduct a study and develop a plan to reduce the accidental catch of beaked, pilot and sperm whales.

The team, composed of fishers, environmentalists and scientists, hopes to achieve a goal of zero incidental catches of the marine mammals by the year 2001, by aggressively enforcing the plan and by buying back as many fishing permits as possible. They are 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.

Pete Dupuy, one of about 30 swordfish and shark fishers who operate out of Ventura Harbor, said they have been good stewards of the $7.2-million West Coast shark and swordfish industry. Dupuy, 60, whose boat is the Karen Marie, voiced concern that the government will punish 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 percentage,” said the Tarzana resident.

Team member Hanna Bernard, who runs the Maui-based Hawai’i Wildlife Fund, said, “The goal is to bring the by-catch 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,” said Bernard, who spent the first part of her career in Ventura County as one of the first state Department of Fish and Game observers.

It was Bernard’s responsibility back then to ensure that fishers 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 fishers kept records of the by-catch and properly disposed of the carcasses.

In addition to conducting workshops in the area, the current team is requiring fishers to outfit their nets with sound-emitting devices known as pingers, a plan that has been in place since last 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.

The experiment has shown that by-catch is four times lower for nets using pingers. The equipment costs about $1,600 per vessel.

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

Just how much the buy-back program would cost and how it would be funded is 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 fisher’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, said Dupuy, a co-director of the seafood harvesters group.

“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.”

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 by-catch 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.”