KAILUA-KONA — A group of Native Hawaiians, fishermen and divers made known earlier this week its intention to restock marine life at the recently established Kaupulehu Marine Reserve, where a 10-year no take period was implemented out to a depth of 20 fathoms, or 120 feet.
The plan — which was proposed as a way to shorten or eliminate the fishing ban, at least for Native Hawaiians, in the interest of traditional Hawaiian practices — entails capturing marine species the reserve is intended to protect from other locations and releasing them at Kaupulehu.
But Bruce Anderson, the state Division of Aquatic Resources administrator, said Tuesday replenishing fish populations is just not that simple.
“There are lots of questions,” he said. “And there are certainly huge challenges with what (the group) is proposing. Even if this was a good idea, there are some technical issues that would have to be overcome that I’m not sure they have thought through well. There are practical issues that are just daunting.”
The first question Anderson posed centered around from where the new fish might come.
“There are very few areas on the Big Island where fish are abundant to the point where people would accept taking fish from those areas and moving them to another,” Anderson explained. “Certainly, if I were a fisherman in areas they plan to take fish, I would be concerned.”
It is reasonable to expect that most species the group would try to catch and relocate would be populating other reefs, and depleting marine life in those areas wouldn’t fix any problems, just change the locales in which they exist.
Anderson said he didn’t have enough details of the plan to determine its legality, but removing fish from any other protected area would certainly be illegal.
The group plans to set up a tent on the public access beach between the Kukio Golf and Beach Club and the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai as it undertakes an initiative representatives indicated would span several months.
Palikapu Dedman, president of the Pele Defense Fund and a primary organizer of the initiative, said all activities will remain below the high-water mark. He added that by exercising traditional rights, those activities should be covered as long as they take place off private property.
The group also plans to document the numbers of fish and type of marine life species introduced at Kaupulehu, monitoring the process in an effort to prove its efficacy.
“(Replenishment) is part of our culture anyway,” Dedman told West Hawaii Today on Monday. “It’s not just take. We also replenish. This will be open to the public, so if kids or schools want to be a part of the project of replenishing, they should come down and learn from the uncles the old style of how we use the reef and how we use the fish.”
Not all Native Hawaiians are in agreement on the subject, however, as several sit on the Kaupulehu Marine Life Advisory Committee, which was a driving force behind the creation of the marine reserve.
Anderson’s next concern with the group’s proposal was the issue of fish transport. On a large scale, it’s an extremely difficult process that typically entails the need for large tanks as well as compressed air or oxygen to keep water aerated for any significant length of time.
Most fishermen don’t have these kinds of resources readily available to them, Anderson said.
Thirdly, he explained that while a stock enhancement program may be well meaning, such initiatives tend to find little or no success.
Anderson said he was part of an attempted stock enhancement of moi and papio, which were raised in captivity in aquaculture facilities and then released into the wild off the shores of Oahu.
Hundreds of thousands of fish were introduced into the open ocean over a period of several years and very few survived. The practice is simply not sustainable, even on a tremendous scale, he explained.
“We have to restore the entire ecosystem, which takes time,” Anderson said. “You can’t just throw fish in the water and expect they will stick around and that it will make a long-term difference. Most fish would probably swim away and you would probably never see them again.”
“Every scientist I’ve ever heard speak about the topic would say you need to create an environment for the fish that will allow them to naturally reproduce,” Anderson added. “That is what is going to be sustainable, and that is what we are trying to do at Kaupulehu (with the marine reserve).”
Other concerns involve the health of fish that might be transported. Introducing sick or dying marine life into Kaupulehu may cause more problems than replenishment on any scale could solve.
Still, despite his skepticism of the group’s proposal, Anderson said the Division of Aquatic resources would be happy to meet with the group’s representatives, namely president of the Pele Defense Fund Palikapu Dedman, to discuss the concerns and obstacles inherent to the proposal.
But he could offer no guarantees.
“If they were to apply for a special permit, they would have to provide a lot more detail than we have now about where they will catch the fish, what species, and how would they be transported and released,” Anderson explained. “You would have to tag them. To make this idea work, you would need to know if fish were part of a stocking effort or naturally there. You have to determine the effectiveness of what you’re doing.”
While open to discussion on the matter, Anderson simply didn’t find the basic foundations of the proposed plan feasible, adding the positive or negative effects would be entirely uncertain.
“I don’t know what the net value would be,” Anderson said. “You’re just robbing Peter to pay Paul.”