HILO — For the second straight year, Hawaii’s longline fisheries in the Central Pacific have reached their bigeye tuna quota far earlier than expected.
The longline fleet, nearly all of which is based in Honolulu, will now have to travel farther to fish for bigeye, a factor that could lead to better prices for local Big Island fisherman who are bringing in tuna with handlines.
Fishing quotas are set years in advance by the Western Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international group of 27 countries. They are based on historical levels of catch “and then reduced quite a bit,” said Eric Kingma, international fisheries enforcement coordinator for the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
Hawaii’s longline fleet makes up about 3 percent of the worldwide bigeye catch.
It’s not clear why this year’s quota of 3,554 metric tons was reached so early. Last year, the fishery closed in August, the earliest the region had ever been restricted.
Two months after the closure, the fleet returned to the waters, fishing under the quotas of U.S. territories in the Pacific.
The same process of quota-borrowing is in the works, Kingma said, but has not been enacted yet.
“We thought last year was maybe an anomaly from El Niño,” he said. “The higher catch rates and the bigger fish persisted this year.”
“It’s the same number of hooks (in the water),” said Hawaii Longline Association president Sean Martin. Catch rates are 40 percent higher than historical numbers, he said.
The closure of the western and central Pacific longline grounds begins Friday and continues through the end of the year. The eastern Pacific region will close Monday to boats that are larger than 24 meters long.
“Some boats will choose to go fishing (in the eastern region), and for some of the smaller boats, it’s quite a run for them,” Martin said. There are about 130 active boats in the Hawaii longline fleet. More than three-quarters will still be able to fish in the east.
“The fishing continues, it just continues in a much less efficient manner,” Martin said.
“If they lose production, sometimes you see increased prices for the local, the small troller guys,” Kingma said. “Sometimes they might get a better price to fill the market gap.”
Martin said that 80 percent of bigeye caught by the Hawaiian fleet stays in the state.
But because vessels will have to travel longer distances to reach fishing grounds, the time between landing a fish and the time the catch hits the Honolulu auctions will increase.
“The first fish they land is going to be that much be older by the time it gets to the block,” said Suisan division manager Kyle Sumner. “On Oahu, what’ll happen is there’ll be more low-quality fish there, so the low price will come up a little bit.”
“Our higher-quality handline fish will get higher prices,” Sumner said. Suisan does not buy longline-caught fish.
Sumner said that the fish market will try to absorb some of the higher bigeye price so it’s not passed on to the consumer.
“It’s such a staple for our community,” he said of ahi.
Longline fishing has considerable potential for bycatch and has drawn criticism from environmental groups for this reason. It is not permitted within 50 miles of the Hawaiian archipelago.
Martin and Kingma both said the longline fishery was well-regulated in terms of overall bigeye stocks.
“The one thing is that just because we hit the quota doesn’t mean that our fishery isn’t sustainable,” Kingma said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.