End May Be Near for Swordfish Fleet

The federal government on Wednesday proposed shutting down the West Coast’s commercial swordfish fishing fleet, saying that too many sea turtles are being inadvertently snagged on baited hooks in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The proposed regulations by the National Marine Fisheries Service come as a federal judge in San Francisco is considering closing down the same San Pedro-based fleet under a lawsuit by conservationists aimed at avoiding the projected extinction of the leatherback sea turtle and arresting the decline of other turtles.

Most of the two dozen remaining long line fishing boats were pushed out of Hawaii a few years ago by similar restrictions adopted to protect sea turtles. Now, this group of mostly Vietnamese American fishermen face the loss of their livelihood if the restrictions are adopted in a 1,200-mile swath of Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the coast of California, Oregon and Washington.

“I will lose everything I have,” said Alan Duong, who earlier this year bought a new $1.2-million fishing boat. “I put everything I had into the boat. I borrowed money from everyone I know, all my relatives, and we still owe the bank.”

The proposed regulations, which could go into effect in March, focus exclusively on “long lining,” a fishing practice of unfurling lines of baited hooks that stretch as far as 50 miles off the stern of boats.

Specifically, the regulations would ban setting these lines in waters near the surface, usually within the top 100 feet, which tend to lead to more encounters with air-breathing sea turtles.

Commercial fishermen catch nearly all of their swordfish by setting lines near the surface, using squid as bait and marking the lines with submergible light sticks that attract their prey. Unfortunately, this form of fishing also catches more turtles than lines set at greater depths, as is done by fishermen looking for tuna and other types of fish.

Using data collected by observers on board the fishing boats, federal officials estimate that in a typical year the West Coast fleet generally sets about 1.5 million hooks a year, and inadvertently snags or entangles 174 loggerhead turtles and 52 leatherbacks.

Federal officials expect that all of these turtles would be released alive. But based on federal calculations, 61 loggerheads and 15 leatherbacks would die later because of related injuries, sometimes inflicted when a turtle that has swallowed a hook is hauled on board.

Although this is a small number of turtles, both of these species are on a sharp decline and protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“Unfortunately, we are almost at the point where every leatherback [turtle] matters,” said Larry Crowder, a biologist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. Unless things change, he said, the leatherback sea turtle will become extinct within the next 10 to 30 years.

Fishing boat captains in San Pedro say they rarely catch turtles. Furthermore, the fishermen argue that shutting them down won’t protect the turtles from swordfish boats from Mexico, Taiwan, Korea and Japan that fish the same international waters.

“We go out and fish side by side with the foreign boats,” said Long Nguyen of Honolulu, whose 85-foot boat is now based out of San Pedro. “They eat turtles,” he said of his foreign competitors. “We save turtles. So how come they can fish [with] long line [gear] and we cannot?”

Nationwide, U.S. sword-fishing boats make up less than 5% of the worldwide fleet.

Fishing for swordfish off the West Coast is done in international waters at least 200 miles from shore. To bring swordfish into U.S. ports, fishermen must get permits from the federal government under the High Seas Fishing Compliance Act.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council earlier this year recommended that the West Coast be allowed to continue without the restrictions placed on fishermen in Hawaii.

The recommendation prompted William T. Hogarth, the head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, to write that the recommendations “failed to provide adequate protection for threatened and endangered sea turtles.”

The council’s plan, he wrote, created a “situation, which disappoints me greatly.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service has been embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the Turtle Island Restoration Network and other conservation groups over the issue. Over the summer, the conservation groups won a key legal battle before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and are now pressing for a federal judge in San Francisco to shut down the West Coast fleet, as was done in Hawaii in 2001.

“We want to close the loophole,” said Brendan Cummings, a lawyer in the case for the Center for Biological Diversity. “What is prohibited off Hawaii shouldn’t be allowed off of California.”

Tim Price, an official with the regional office of the Fishery Service, said one alternative solution involves changing the type of fishing hooks and switching bait. Experiments in the Atlantic Ocean last year with this gear reduced the catch of loggerheads by 90% and leatherbacks by 65%.

Fishing authorities in Hawaii are pushing to reopen the swordfish fishery using the experimental gear, and some officials are pushing for this in California, rather than a shutdown.

Crowder said the new techniques haven’t been studied enough to know if they are effective.

“I share the frustration of [domestic] fishermen,” Crowder said. “If you shut down the entire U.S. fishery, you don’t solve the problem for the loggerhead and leatherback turtles.” But if the new gear works, he said, “you can export them to other countries. You cannot export a closure.”