The Honolulu Longline Fleet A Snapshot in Time
K. W. Bridges
2018 © K. W. Bridges www.kimbridges.com
Notes & Disclaimers All of the photos, charts, graphs, and maps are original except where noted (see endnotes for details). Data are focused on the May-July, 2018 period but often cover times outside the target range. Some of this happens because of the desire to keep fishing activities anonymous. Some analyses are based on samples of the data. This was done without statistical rigor and is meant to illustrate the potential for further analysis. All data representations that might reveal a specific ship’s activities are kept anonymous. My MarineTraffic account is at the “pro” level. This provides me with access to more data than the free and less expensive accounts. Overall, this document demonstrates how much information can be gleaned by simple observation, Internet data mining, and statistical analysis. Nancy Furumoto is my expert ship spotter and editor.
Looking out the Window We see ships in Honolulu Harbor. Sometimes they are big ships. Container ships, cruise ships, fuel ships, and car transporters seem to be the most common. Then there are the small ships. Tugs (of all kinds) and a lot of fishing boats.
Name, Please Knowing names is important. Once you know all of the names of a set of objects, you see more. You see detail. Your observations take you to a new level of understanding. This works with birds; ask anyone who is building a life-list. And plants. And probably ships. My focus is Honolulu Harbor. Is it impossible to know all of the ships? It should be possible for the stable inventory. Those are the tugs, many cargo ships, and a few tourist boats. Then there are the fishing boats. They’re the big unknown. Fortunately, we have a useful tool. It is MarineTraffic. This is a service available through the Internet or as an app on a smart phone. The basic use of MarineTraffic is to see a map showing the locations of the ships. Click on a ship and you’ll get more information, including the ship’s name. For many vessels, you also get a photo. If you are curious, you can get additional facts. A lot more details about the ship and where it has been. This is the tool that lets us do ship identification. You can discover the name of a ship that is far offshore. MarineTraffic provides the basic information we need to learn about the local vessels.
MarineTraffic is a community-based project. For the most part, the service relies on a network of shore-based receiving stations. Volunteers capture information sent from ships and relay this to an aggregation platform. Maps then display the information sent from some 2,700 stations. This system was created in 2007 by Dimitris Lekkas in Greece. It has become a very popular service with millions of unique visitors getting ship information each month. Recently, ship information received by satellites has been added to this service. Vessel information is not as specific as the ground-based reports unless you purchase an expensive subscription. The key thing: we can now identify the ships in the harbor.
The key to the operation of MarineTraffic is called “AIS.” This is the acronym for Automatic Identification System, a navigation system designed to avoid ship collisions. AIS, in turn, is based on GPS systems. A GPS receiver determines a ship’s location, speed and direction. This information, along with ship identification and a few other facts, is periodically transmitted by each vessel. Other ships within receiving range get the AIS messages. On-board instrumentation shows a ship’s crew the location of nearby vessels and sends an alert if the vessels are on a collision path. The same information is used to manage ports and busy marine highways. We get to listen, too.
AIS The AIS system began in 2006. Then, it was used on very large ships. It isn’t the only navigation system. Ships still use radar and visual sightings. AIS adds to the traditional systems. With navigation, especially in bad conditions, more is better. Smaller commercial ships began adding AIS in 2010. Now, all fishing vessels over 15 m (50 ft) must send AIS signals. The AIS signal travels about 10 to 20 NM across the surface. (1 NM = 1.15 mi) It was discovered that the signals travel into space and they can be captured with satellitebased receivers. There are technical difficulties, but these have generally been overcome. Now, ship locations can be seen over all of the oceans. MarineTraffic gets AIS data through the Internet. It decodes the data and creates maps showing the distribution of ships. The map icons are colored to distinguish the different types of ships. Green identifies a cargo ship. Tankers are blue. Passenger ships get purple. Fishing boats are orange. These colors help us make sense of the distribution patterns of the ships. Looking broadly at the ocean, we see marine transportation corridors carrying cargo and fuel. Passenger ships dot popular travel routes and destinations. The presence of orange markers shows where fishing is good. The absence of fishing boats is often due to governmental restrictions, leaving unmarked holes in the ocean. AIS provides a rich set of data. MarineTraffic aggregates, stores and distributes this data.
Longline Fleet My original intent associated with ship spotting is to know the names of the vessels. MarineTraffic is the tool. Clicking on a ship marker on MarineTraffic gets me the name. Having a picture of the ship with the name is even better. There are a lot of photos on MarineTraffic. All the large vessels that come to Honolulu Harbor are very likely to have many pictures showing the ship in a variety of locations. The same is true for the “working boats” of the harbor. Tugs and tourist boats are popular photographic subjects. What was missing were photos of Hawai`i’s Longline Fleet. There were a few photos but most of the fishing boats were missing this important data element. I set a goal: correct the information deficiency by adding photos of the longline fleet to MarineTraffic. In doing so, I discovered that I wanted to learn more about these fishing boats, how they operate, and what they are catching. The place to start is with a list of all the registered longline boats. Note that this is a “limited entry” fishery. Permits are issued by NOAA. Here is their statement: The Hawaii longline fishery is a limited entry fishery with a maximum of 164 permits. Because it is a limited entry fishery, no new permits can be issued, but permits are renewable and freely transferable. Permits expire on March 3 and must be renewed annually.
The 145 ships of the Honolulu Longline Fleet 3 Brothers
Commander
Kami M
Alana
Crystal
Katherine II
Anthony G
Cumberland Trail
Katy Mary
Aolani
Destiny
Kaua'i
Apsara
Double D
Kawaiola
Autumn
Edward G.
Kawika
Azure
Finback
Kelly Ann
Blue Dragon
Gail Ann
Kilauea
Blue Sky
Golden Dragon
Kimmy I
Capt Andy
Golden Eagle
Kraken
Capt Danny
Golden Eagle II
Lady Alice
Capt Davis
Golden Phoenix
Lady Ann Margaret
Capt Greg
Green Mountain
Lady Anna
Capt K
Gutsy Lady 4
Lady Annie
Capt Kenneth
Hawaii Ocean
Lady Betty
Capt Kevin
Helen
Lady Christine I
Capt Millions I
Hokuao
Lady J3
Capt Millions III
Holokai
Lady Jackie
Capt Silver
Iron Lady
Lady Karen
Captain Alex
Janthina
Lady Karen II
Captain D
Jennifer
Lady Luck
Captain J 3
Jenny
Lady Maria
Captain Paxton
Kaimana
Lady Mocha I
Caroleigh
Kaimi
Lady Mocha II
Christine N
Kalani
Lady of the Sea
Lady of the Sea II
Princess Jasmine II
Second Andy
Lady Pauline
Princess K
Seven Star
Lanikai
Princess Pearla
Sky Moon
Laura Ann
Queen Alina
Southern Horizon
Mana Hawaii
Queen Diamond
St Damien
Mariah
Queen Diamond II
St Joseph
Marie M
Rachel
St. Marianne
Marina
Rising Phoenix
St. Martin
Marine Star
Rising Phoenix II
St. Peter
Mighty Joe
Robin II
Sylvia
Miss Ellen
Sapphire
The Seeker II
Miss Emma
Sapphire II
Triple Andy
Miss Julie
Sapphire III
Triple Dragon
Miss Quinn
Sea Diamond
VAK 1
Miss Renee
Sea Dragon
VAK 2
Nahoa
Sea Dragon II
VAK 3
OKAY
Sea Dragon III
Vui Vui
Pacific Dragon
Sea Goddess
Vui Vui II
Pacific Horizon
Sea Hawk
Yaozaa
Pacific Reflection
Sea Hunt
Zephyr
Pacific Star
Sea Moon I
Pacific Sun
Sea Pearl
Paradise 2001
Sea Queen II
Paradise 2002
Sea Queen IIA
Princess Jasmine
Seaspray
Vessel's Name Reference Other Hawaiian Male Nature Female 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
Number of Words in the Vessel's Name
Frequency
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1
2
3
Words
4
5
Ship Names Some popular terms used in the names are expected, like “Sea,” “Pacific,” and the two related words “Captain” and “Capt.” I was less ready for the most popular term, “Lady.” “Miss” and “Queen” are not too far behind in popularity. Women are obviously held in high esteem. Feminine greatly outnumber the masculine names. “Dragon” is well represented. That’s a nod to Asia, the ancestral home of many in the fishing industry. The short “St” makes it onto the popularity list as there are five saints recognized by the boat owners. Two of these, Saints Damien and Marianne, achieved their sainthood from acts performed in Hawai`i. About 10% of the names are Hawaiian. I expected it to be a greater fraction.
Ship Length 80
Shortest: 42.8 ft Longest: 98 ft Average Length: 73 ft N: 145
Number of Ships
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 40
50
60
70
80
90
Length (ft)
Ship Construction Era 70
Oldest: 51.5 years Newest: 5.5 years Mean Age: 31.6 years N: 141
Number of Ships
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1960
1970
1980
1990
Decade Launched
2000
2010
Ship Characteristics The Honolulu fleet of longline ships fits into the “medium-scale” category. These are vessels that range in size from 50 ft (15 m) to 100 ft (30 m). Smaller ships tend to stay close to shore and fish for a day or two at a time. Ships larger than this category travel the world’s oceans and are at sea for months. The fleet is aging. The ships have a mean age of over 31 years and only about 11% of the ships were constructed in the last two decades. The estimated total number of people who crew this fleet is 863. Crew Size 100
Smallest: 4 people Largest: 9 people Median Crew: 6 people N: 136
90
Number of Ships
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 4
5
6
7
Crew Members
8
9
I spotted a ship off the Honolulu’s Reef Runway on the morning of July 4, 2018. It was the Sea Goddess, a vessel in the Longline Fleet. There were strong south swells and waves beat the ship’s stern. It didn’t look like a good situation. A quick check of the Past Track on MarineTraffic showed that Sea Goddess ran straight into the shoreline at HNL’s reef runway about 12:30 AM. Somebody must have fallen asleep at the wheel. A US Navy ship arrived and attached a line. It took a lot of tugging to free the fishing boat from the reef. The Navy ship then towed the now freed Sea Goddess to Pier 38. Two days later, they towed Sea Goddess to get repairs.
Ship Mortality & Near Misses Fishing in the open sea is dangerous. Princess Hawaii, a 89 foot long fishing boat, sank 400 miles off Hawai`i Island on March 25, 2018. The Coast Guard located the seven crew members and a NOAA observer. The people were soon picked up by the sister ship, Commander, that was nearby. This steel-hulled vessel was built in 1976. In other cases, ships loose control and run aground. Pacific Paradise went aground on October 7, 2017 at the edge of Waikiki’s famous beaches. The photo below shows the ship is being readied for another attempt to dislodge it from the Kaimana Beach reef. Floating was successful the next day, December 7, 2017. The fishing boat was hauled out to sea and sunk.
Port Departure Day ChiSq: 6.79 df: 6 P: 0.34 N: 121
25
Frequency
20 15 10 5 0 Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday
Friday
Daily Number of Arrivals/Departures, June 2018
8
Arr Dep Min: 0 1 Max: 10 9 Median: 4 4 N: 129 121
7 6
Frequency
Saturday
Departure
5 4
Arrival
3 2 1 0 0
1
2
3
4
5
Number/Day
6
7
8
9
10
Time Budget: In Port There are a lot of port tasks: fish unloading, equipment repair, restocking and refueling. Crews need a break, too. The result is that the fleet, at least during the May-July, 2018 period, spent about a third of its time in port. Is it unlucky to leave port on Friday? The data say that for this period, there was no significant different in the days of the week. The fleet uses two sets of piers. Fish are unloaded at Pier 38. This is adjacent to the fish auction. The other moorings are at Piers 16 and 17. These are the boats that are easily seen from Nimitz Highway.
50
Days in Port Time Distribution
Frequency
40
Minimum: 2.2 days Maximum: 46 days Median: 6.4 days N: 105
30
In Port 33% At Sea 67%
20
10
0 0-5
5-10
10-15
15-20
20-25
25-30
30-35
35-40
Days in Port Between Periods of Fishing
40-45
45-50
Time Budget: At Sea On average, a ship in the Honolulu Longline Fleet spends about 2.5 weeks at sea before returning to port. This means that the fishing boats are at sea about twice as long as they spend in port as they cycle back and forth between fishing and replenishing. Descriptions of typical medium-scale longline ships note that 10 to 12 sets are done in a typical trip. Each of these sets uses between 1,200 and 2,500 hooks.
Frequency
20
Shortest: 2 days Longest: 31 days Average: 17.5 days N: 68
15
10
5
0 0-5
5-10
10-15
15-20
20-25
Time at Sea (days)
25-30
30-35
Where the Fishing Boats Go Where the ships go as they fish is a complex question. I’ll use some statistics to develop an understanding of the pattern of travel. The ships average about 2,000 NM (2,200 miles) in a trip. For perspective, this is about the same distance as 4 round trips between Kaua`i and the Big Island. Travel is done in spurts as a fishing boat stops periodically to run its longline.
20 18 16
Shortest: 228 NM Longest: 4,535 NM Average: 2,013 NM N: 68
Frequency
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Trip Length (NM)
These three maps show the routes of six fishing boats. There is no relationship between these boats. They are combined here for convenience. There is considerable variation in both fishing areas and strategies. Some boats, such as Ship 1, fish an area intensively. Ship 2, in contrast, spread its effort over a much larger area and moved from one fishing area to another. Some fishing boats went north-west (Ship 3) while others headed south (Ships 4 & 5). This raised a question. Does a particular boat have a favored fishing area?
Ship 2 Ship 1
Ship 3
Ship 4
Ship 6
Ship 5
Ship 1
Noon Positions Trip 1 2 3 4
Dates 4/5 to 4/18 4/22 to 5/13 5/17 to 6/5 6/12 to 6/26
Favored Fishing Grounds Do fishing boats return, over and over, to the same place? MarineTraffic stores data from past voyages. Three vessels from the Honolulu Longline Fleet were arbitrarily chosen for analysis. There were trip records for between 2 and 4 trips for these fishing boats. The period covered runs from early April to late June, 2018. Ship 1 took for trips, the first three of which covered about the same area. The last trip was very different. Ship 2 went to very different areas on each of its three trips. Ship 3 took two trips; they were both in the same general area. The conclusion from this small sample is that fishing boats probably return to the same area if they have gotten a good catch. There is clear evidence of switching to a completely different area if necessary.
Noon Positions Trip Dates 1 5/13 to 5/30 2 6/8 to 6/11 3 6/12 to 6/26
Ship 2
Noon Positions Trip Dates 1 4/15 to 5/1 2 5/18 to 6/3
Ship 3
Yellowfin
Bigeye
Albacore
Skipjack
This diagram, modified slightly from Kitchell, et. al (1999), shows the trophic complexity of the pelagic fish in the Central Pacific. This serves as a good reminder of the complexity of these systems and how fishing for specific species can impact other species.
Overall Fishing Pattern Longline vessels are required to keep a daily log of their fishing effort (hooks used), what they catch and keep, and what they catch and discard. The marine scientists at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service use these numbers to evaluate the status of the fish stocks. The public gets period reports that aggregate the numbers, generally a few years after data collection. The NOAA map shows that the areas with the most intense fishing are north, north-east, and south-west of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Thunnus obesus
Pacific Bigeye Tuna Thunnus albacares
Pacific Yellowfin Tuna Thunnus alalunga
Pacific Albacore Tuna
Pacific Skipjack Tuna Images: Modified from www.fishwatch.gov
Katsuwonus pelamis
The Fish Being Caught The Honolulu Longline Fleet is after tuna. More specifically, they want to catch bigeye and yellowfin tuna. These two species are known as “ahi� in Hawai`i. This is what we eat as sashimi. There are two other major tuna species: albacore and skipjack. These tuna are caught, too. But they are not the target species of this fishing fleet. The commonly caught sizes of the four tuna species vary in length by about a factor of two. The big difference is in the weight. A common skipjack is up to 2.5 Kg (5.5 pounds). Compare that to a bigeye tuna which is commonly up to 130 Kg (287 pounds).
Fish Length
Fish Weight
Skipjack
Skipjack
Albacore
Albacore
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
common
Big Eye
0
100
200
maximum 300
Length (cm) Source: www.atuna.com
400
common
Big Eye
500
0
100
maximum 200
Weight (Kg)
300
400
There is a lot of fishing for tuna. In 2015, the four tuna species landed worldwide had a combined weight of 4,821,552 MT. That’s over 10.6 billion pounds. To keep our perspective, very little of the skipjack and albacore catch is done by the Honolulu Longline Fleet. Further, these local longline boats catch only 1.5% of the bigeye tuna.
2015: World Tuna Landings Based on Weight Albacore 5% Bigeye 9%
ahi
Skipjack 59% Yellowfin 28%
Fresh
Canned
The immense worldwide catch of tuna has put some species at risk. It is clear that all tuna stocks need careful monitoring. Strict and enforced fishing limits are also essential.
Species
Ocean
2017 Status
Skipjack
Indian
Moderately Exploited
Eastern Pacific
Moderately Exploited
Western & Central Pacific
Moderately Exploited
Eastern Atlantic
Moderately Exploited
Western Atlantic
Moderately Exploited
Yellowfin
Atlantic
Fully Exploited
Indian
Overfished
Eastern Pacific
Albacore
Western & Central Pacific
Moderately Exploited
North Pacific
Moderately Exploited
South Pacific
Moderately Exploited
Mediterranean
Bigeye
Fully Exploited
Overfished
Indian
Moderately Exploited
North Atlantic
Moderately Exploited
South Atlantic
Moderately Exploited
Eastern Pacific
Moderately Exploited
Western & Central Pacific
Moderately Exploited
Indian
Moderately Exploited
Atlantic
Overfished
A snap to attach a branchline, floats and radio beacons, the reel loaded with the mainline, and a line setter. Grab some more snaps, add some hooks and bait, and you’re ready to go.
Longline Fishing The monofilament-based longline fishing system was developed on the US East Coast in the 1980s. Specifically, the Hawai'i longline fishery does “deep set� fishing. Shallow-set fishing is for billfish and it has different gear requirements. The monofilament line is kept on a hydraulically-driven drum (called a reel). A large reel can hold as much as 70 NM of line. The nylon line itself is usually 3.5 mm in diameter. The reel is used to store the line and to haul it in. This long line is the mainline and it will run the entire length of the set. A marker buoy with a radio beacon is attached to the end of the mainline. Then the mainline is paid out as the boat moves. The mainline is generally run through a line setter. This device controls the rate of line movement so that the line can be paid out faster than the speed of the boat. This is necessary to get the mainline to deeper depths. The depth of the mainline is often 200 to 300 m below the surface.
Marker buoy Floatline Branchline
Branchlines (sometimes called snoods or gangions) are lengths of monofilament line with a swivel snap (also called a clip) at one end. The other end of the branchline has a swivel, leader, and hook. Overall, the branchline is 10 to 12 m (33 to 39 ft) long. The swivel snap attaches the branchline to the mainline. This clip is designed to stay firmly in place when pulled side-to-side. When turned 90 degrees, the swivel snap moves freely along the line. Each branchline has a hook that is baited with frozen fish. An operator adds branchlines onto the mainline as it is paid out, one every 35 m (115 ft). Periodically, after perhaps every 20 to 30 branchlines, a floatline is attached to the mainline. A floatline is a 20 to 60 m (65-197 ft) long monofilament line attached to a hard plastic ball. A buoy float with a strobe light is attached to the end of the mainline. A radio beacon is attached to the mainline every 10 NM. The entire set may be 30 to 40 nautical miles long. It goes out once each fishing day where it drifts. After four to eight hours, the mainline is hauled in. The drum pulls in the mainline. A crew member unclips branchlines and floatlines as they come in. The sliding swivel snaps allow this to happen. The drum is stopped only for fish and tangles.
The fish that are brought up are killed with a spike through the head. The fish is then gutted and put into the hold with flaked ice. The number of fish caught is often reported relative to the effort. In the case of longline tune, this is the number of fish per 1,000 hooks set. When viewed from the perspective of the fleet’s seasonal performance, this “catch per unit effort” is a contribution to our understanding of the sustainability of the fishery. To a layman, a total tuna catch of 5.9 fish per 1,000 hooks doesn’t seem very successful. But it is.
2016: Catch per Unit Effort
Albacore
Skipjack tuna
Yellowfin tuna
Bigeye Tuna
0
1
2
3
Fish per 1,000 Hooks
4
5
The Local Catch The primary tuna target for the Honolulu Longline Fleet are the two “ahi� species; bigeye and yellowfin tuna. Recent statistics show that these two species made up 86% of the annual catch (based on the number of fish caught).
2016: Number of Fish Caught (Hawaii Longline Logbooks)
Skipjack 10%
Albacore 4%
Yellowfin 14%
Ahi 86%
Bigeye 72%
The longline boats catch other species that are valuable. These include a number of billfish species. In addition, a lot of local favorites come up in the catch, such as mahimahi, opah, wahoo, and monchong. The diagram below shows the proportions of the types of fish caught by the Honolulu Fleet using longlines. It is based on the average number of individual fish caught over the 2009-2013 period. It should be noted that some longline fishing focuses on billfish.
mahimahi wahoo/ono opah/moonfish monchong/sickle pomfret
-
Other 16% Billfish 21%
Tunas 64%
Coryphaena hippurus
mahimahi
Acanthocybium solanderi
wahoo/ono Lampris guttatus
opah/ moonfish
Taractichthys steindachneri
monchong/ sickle pomfret
Selling Fish in Honolulu August 5, 1952. About 66 years ago. That’s when the United Fish Agency started the Honolulu Fish Auction. They’re still doing it. This is the only market of its kind in the US. Fishermen sell their fish in an auction to the brokers, wholesale and retail market buyers. This system, modeled after the Tokyo market, aims to bring a fair price to the fisherman. The auction is run six days a week. The fish enter the market where they are stored until the starting bell rings at 5:30 AM. Each fish is tagged with the boat’s name and fish weight. The auctioneer moves down the row and participants bid on the fish, one at a time. A recent month saw an average of nearly $57 thousand paid for each boat’s load of tuna. 30
Ahi Sales Total 25 20 15 10 5 0
May 2018 Number of Sales 114 Total Value $6,471,527 Average Sale $56,768
Remember that a boat’s catch includes other species. These figures represent only one part of a fishing boat’s income. Nonetheless, one boat sold its tuna catch for $145,784. That’s a pretty good payday. The pattern of sales through the month is surprisingly even.
Daily Number of Ahi Market Sales 1200 1000
May 2018
800 600 400 200 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Daily Total Ahi Weight (pounds) 100,000 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
May 2018
The May 2018 monthly total weight of ahi was 667 MT (nearly 1.5 million pounds). That’s 20% of the 3345 MT (2017) catch limit.
Daily Total Ahi Sales ($) $400,000 $350,000 $300,000 $250,000 $200,000 $150,000 $100,000 $50,000 $1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
May 2018 Does an abundance of ahi in the auction depress the day’s average price? Not according to the data for May 2018.
Ahi price vs. weight of fish sold $5.50
R2 = 0.07 P=0
$5.00
$4.50
$4.00
$3.50
$3.00 40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
Daily Ahi Weight Sold (MT x 1000)
85
90
US North Pacific Longline Tuna Catch (excl. CNMI & Am. Samoa)
Metric Tons 6,000 5,000
Skipjack Albacore Yellowfin
4,000 3,000
Bigeye
2,000 1,000 2009
2010
2011
2012
No Longline Fishing
Southern Exclusion Zone
2013
Sustainability The Hawaiian word “poke” means to slice, or cut crosswise into pieces. In common use, it refers to fish that’s been cut into cubes and sprinkled with salt or drizzled with shoyu. As a food, poke has become a phenomenon in the US. Ahi is the prized fish for poke. This need not be the case as other fish serve the same purpose. Some people argue that other fish species are better. And they are more sustainable. The worry is that poke is getting so popular that the demand will negatively impact attempts to keep the ahi fishery at a sustainable level. The tuna catch by the US North Pacific Longline Fishery appears to be stable, year after year. That’s one measure of sustainability. Sustainability has another face. It is the bycatch, those marine species that get trapped, injured or killed during the process of longline fishing. If two false killer whales are killed or seriously injured in a year, it will result in the prohibition of fishing in the Southern Exclusion Zone, the area in which the false killer whales are found. This just happened! The SEZ will be closed the day after these words are written (7/23/2018). That’s going to have a big impact. Turtles receive similar protections. Are these regulations enough to maintain both aspects of sustainability; target fish and the bycatch?
Undiscussed Issues Foreign Labor Most of the crew on the Honolulu Longline Fleet are not Americans. Most don’t even have a visa to enter the US. Advocates for the foreign crew argue that working conditions are akin to slavery. They cite extremely low wages and defacto imprisonment on the fishing boats.
Bycatch Bycatch is a weak term for the damage that fishing does to non-target species. Longline fishing can cause significant harm to turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals. The fishing industry has implemented some mitigating measures. Governments have designated protected zone. Observers provide some monitoring oversight. But the story is complicated. Are the bycatch limits based on good science? Do foreign-flag fishermen have equivalent rules? Does the market-shift resulting from a closure due to bycatch limits have secondary negative impacts? Do the fishing and research communities have open and fruitful discussions? New Developments in the Industry There are many technologies that can help the longline fishing industry. These will not only help productivity, but increase safety, crew equity, bycatch minimization, and stock sustainability.
International Impacts & Threats This story is not about international tuna fishing. It is good to remind ourselves that even with careful local planning, these fish are pelagic and they travel long distances across the open oceans. Consider the following statement from Smithsonian Magazine and an accompanying graphic. China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea — are responsible for more than 85 percent of fishing that happens on the high seas, outside of their own economic zones.
Kaiyu Maru, one of many Japanese fishery training ships.
Some Ships from the Fleet The ship images show the diversity of the Honolulu Longline Fleet. Nearly all of the 145 ships with longline permits are shown in photos on MarineTraffic.com. This is just a sample.
Notes Looking Out the Window: This is my view of Honolulu Harbor. In this photo, taken near sunset on February 15, 2015, two large ships, Pride of America and Queen Elizabeth, clog Honolulu Harbor. Many of the ship photos were taken from this spot. The distance from this location to the closest ship photos is about 1,000 m (3,300 ft). The most distant were about 1,500 m (5,000 ft) away. This required using a long lens, between 400 and 560 mm. Name, Please: I’ve run MarineTraffic Station 475 since April 5, 2011. My equipment is a Digital Yacht AISnet Internet Base Station and a MV-158 AIS/VHF Antenna. It is a low-maintenance system. The Base Station, a small box, sits at the back of my desk and the antenna is in an adjacent window. This Base Station is connected to the apartment’s Internet switch. AIS: Longline Fleet: The NOAA permit information is given on their website: www.fpir.noaa.gov/SFD/SFD_hlle.html The list of currently registered ships is found in a NOAA issued PDF: www.fpir.noaa.gov/SFD/data/HILLE_current_29June18.pdf
Ship Names: Most of the data analysis in this report was done with Microsoft Excel. The names of the 145 vessels in the Honolulu Longline Fleet were entered into a spreadsheet. The general characteristic of the ship’s name was decided using five broad categories (one of which is “other”). The counts for each category were determined using the Countif function. This is a very useful spreadsheet function (it was used extensively in this report’s analyses). Charts were produced using Excel, but in all cases, the graphics characteristics were modified to so that the visual presentation meets accepted standards. The “wordle” is a word frequency diagram. This was produced using the on-line service worditout.com. This technique for visualizing word frequencies is often useful. It is an under-utilized analysis tool. Ship Characteristics: The ship lengths come from the list of registered vessels (see the Longline Fleet note). The vessel construction date and crew size were extracted from the MarineTraffic (a slow and tedious process). Data were analyzed in Microsoft Excel. The Vlookup function was used to fit observations into categories. This is another extremely useful spreadsheet function. If you don’t know about Vlookup and Countif, you’re missing some of the great power associated with spreadsheets. (End of lecture) Ship Mortality & Near Misses: Sighting the grounding of the Sea Goddess was a chance observation. It occurred 8 km (5 mi) away. The entire event played out over a period of several hours. In contrast, the Pacific Paradise grounding was an up-close phenomenon that lasted months. The Pacific Paradise photo is by U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Amanda Levasseur.
Time Budget: In Port: The data for these analyses come from MarineTraffic. It’s a bit complicated. I started with the MarineTraffic information for the port of Honolulu. I used the Arrivals & Departures listing and filtered this list for Fishing. You see the names of the vessels and information about their activities on this list. For the Port Call Type “Departure,” I noted that the Time At Port is listed. That’s what I want. I used Export All Data and loaded the resulting file into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheet sorting separated the Arrival and Departure lines. The Time At Port is listed in a format like “5d 4h 32m.” I wrote some spreadsheet functions to convert this into decimal days. A bit of data filtering was necessary for records that were not representative of actual port stops. From there, it was a straight-forward job to categorize and plot the data. Note: this information may not be available to all MarineTraffic accounts. I’m using a “pro” account. There was a suggestion in a description of the Alaska fishery that it is bad luck to leave on a Friday. The statistical testing of the port departure day was done with the on-line service at vassarstats.net/csfit.html. Time Budget: At Sea: The same general procedure used for the In Port analyses was done for the At Sea analyses.
Where the Fishing Boats Go: MarineTraffic keeps a detailed log of a ship’s latest trip. This was a bit of a surprise as the vessel locations were generally well outside the range of shore-based receiving stations. This is satellite data! I clicked on a ship in port. The panel that appears has a Past Track button. Clicking this provides a detailed map of the last voyage. I captured this map using PrtScn (print screen). Maps were combined using Adobe PhotoShop. Favored Fishing Grounds: MarineTraffic stores mid-day and midnight locations of fishing vessels. The location information is not as detailed as that reported in Past Track. But it does show the larger picture: the paths of several of the past voyages. Note that this feature, mining past tracks, is a “pro” feature in MarineTraffic. Here is how the information was obtained and handled. Using MarineTraffic, choose a vessel and go to its data page. Select the Itineraries History. Export the data; a file is downloaded. Import the data file into a spreadsheet. Create new columns and sort as needed. Note that the trip data were reduced to show the trip number and the day of the trip. Use the data in GPSVisualizer.com to create the map.
Create a file in the following format: Latitude 21.31327 23.44524 25.54826 28.118 27.66776 27.67781 27.75662 27.79611
Longitude -157.8662 -159.0965 -160.2336 -161.7806 -161.9115 -162.021 -162.0398 -161.7792
N 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Name 1-1 1-2 Padded 1-3 1-4 1-5 1-6 1-7
Pad the data with Honolulu Harbor location coordinates at the start and end of each trip so that the track begins and ends in the harbor. Copy and paste into GPSVisualizer.
After drawing the map, save it (from the map page). This is an HTML document. Open this in a browser and do a screen capture. Crop the capture.
Overall Fishing Pattern: The Kitchell paper citation is Kitchell, J.F., C.H. Boggs, X. He, and C.J. Walters, 1999, Keystone Predators in the Central Pacific, Ecosystem Approaches for Fisheries Management, Alaska Sea Grant College Program, AK-SG-99-01. The map showing the fishing effort (as the number of hooks set) is from the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service 2017 publication Annual Report to the Commission, Part 1: Information on Fisheries, Research, and Statistics (PIFSC Data Report DR-17-029). This was retrieved from the repository.library.noaa.gov website. These data include some activities of fishing boats that are not part of the Honolulu Longline Fleet. Fish Being Caught: The illustrations of the four tuna species come from the fishwatch.gov website. The illustrations were stylized using a Topaz filter in Adobe Photoshop. The statistics on the size and weight of tuna are from the website www.atuna.com. This website focuses on tuna. It has a number of free services. The world tuna statistics and the worldwide species status data are also from www.atuna.com. It must be noted that evaluating the status of a pelagic fish stock, particularly when there is illegal fishing, is difficult. The results can have huge economic and social implications. Politics and industry pressure can intrude. Use this evaluation with caution.
Longline Fishing: The narrative describing the process of longline fishing is adapted from Beverly, S. 2001. Longline Fishing Perspectives: Techniques, Gear, Boats, Bait and recent Trends. Coastal Fisheries Programme, Secretariat of the Pacific Community. SCTB14 Working Paper, FTWG-10. Additional information from the POP Fishing & Marine, Commercial Fishing Catalog available at www.pophawaii.com and the NOAA Regulation Summary, Hawaii Pelagic Longline Fishing. The catch per unit effort data are from NOAA Fishery’s 2017 publication: Hawaii limited access longline logbook summary report, 2016. PIFSC data report; DR-17-009.
The Local Catch: The photo is of an ahi bowl from Ahi Lovers on Queen Street. Yummy. Data for the donut diagram that shows the fish besides tuna being caught by the longlines is from the 2017 NOAA publication: PIFSC data report; DR-17-009 (Hawaii limited access longline logbook summary report, 2016). Fish illustrations for mahimahi, wahoo, and opah started with drawings from fishwatch.com. These were modified for simplification. The monchong illustration is modified from a photo on seafoodwatch.org. Selling Fish in Honolulu: The photo of the auction by the United Fish Company is a Flickr image dated February 18, 2016 that was added by Jennifer. The original image has been modified in Photoshop, including the use of filters by Lucis and Topaz. The history of the Honolulu Fish Auction comes from the Hawaii Seafood Council website, www.hawaii-seafood.org. This website is full of good information. The daily data for May 2018 comes from a series of reports posted at pop-hawaii.com/information-etc/auction-archive/ It is a bit tedious to compile the information but well worth the effort. There is a lot of information here for someone willing to put in the effort to dig deeply. The daily sales were further analyzed by running a regression. Although the trend appears to indicate that the average selling price decreases with a higher market volume, this is not a significant relationship.
Sustainability: The definition of poke comes from the hawaiinewsnow.com Hawaiian Word of the Day. Comments on ahi popularity come from a story by Jennifer
Fiedler, Can Fish Supplies Keep Up With Poke’s Growing Popularity? found on the localiahawaii.com website.
The map showing the year-around No Longline Fishing and the Southern Exclusion Zones, along with information about the 2013 catch of a false killer whale is from the earthjustice.org website. Data for the chart showing the US North Pacific Longline Tuna Catch come from a NOAA Fisheries 2014 report, Annual Report to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (Table 1f). The fishing restriction note caused by the serious injury to two false killer whales came from the federalregister.gov website. The annual catch limit for bigeye tuna in the Central and Western Pacific Region is set at 3,545 Metric Tons. It is possible to track the progress toward this annual allocation at: http://www.fpir.noaa.gov/SFD/SFD_regs_3.html However, the fishery is likely to remain open all year as quota allotments for CNMI and Guam are purchased (in 1000 MT increments) and used in Hawai`i. See details at this website: https://www.civilbeat.org/2016/07/longliners-have-nearlypulled-in-their-2016-limit-of-bigeye-tuna/
Undiscussed Issues: The heavy fence surrounding the harbor at piers 16 and 17 is more than symbolic. It is actually there to prevent people from leaving this area. Access is through a gate with an attendant guard. It is useful to talk to people in the fishing industry about the bycatch issue. Sure, their stories are anecdotal. But they are the people who spend the time on the water. Many are excellent observers with decades of experience. The International Impacts & Threats information came from a February 23, 2018 article by Marissa Fessenden, Tracking Fishing Vessels Reveals Industry’s Toll on the Ocean; Satellites and artificial intelligence fill in gaps in global fisheries knowledge. This was found at www.smithsonianmag.com.