Longline bycatch in Hawaii

The article's lead section may need to be rewritten. The reason given is: Not that clear what this article is about. Please help improve the lead and read the lead layout guide. (March 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Hawaii longline fishery is managed under Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council’s (WPRFMC's) Pelagics Fisheries Ecosystem Plan (formerly Pelagics Fisheries Management Plan). Through this plan, the WPRFMC has introduced logbooks, observers, vessel monitoring systems, fishing gear modifications and spatial management for the Hawaii longline fishery. Until relatively recently, the main driver for management of the Hawaii longline fishery has been bycatch and not fishery resources.

The revival of the Hawaii longline fleet in the late 1980s meant that larger ocean-going longline vessels began operating from Honolulu.^[1] The advent of the new fleet was driven primarily by targeting swordfish, which meant using squid bait on hooks deployed in relatively shallow depths (<30 m) and with light sticks attached to the branch lines. Observers began to be employed on vessels in 1994 and it soon became apparent that in the shallow set fishery there were catches of sea turtles and seabirds. The principal seabirds caught were black-footed and Laysan albatross, and for the turtles, loggerheads and leatherbacks. There were turtle and seabird interactions in the deep set fishery also, but these were one to two orders of magnitude lower than in the shallow set fishery.