There’s also a gap in available data for fish that thrive in the coral reefs closer to shore. Understanding the status of the nearshore fisheries of each island is critical to understanding patterns, use and sustainability - all things we need to consider when managing our fisheries. So we set out to discover how many fish are being caught from the reefs near the shores of Hawaiʻi. We know that fishing is integral to the way of life in Hawaiʻi - people fish to make a living, to feed their families, to share time and meals with others or to spend time on the ocean. In order to manage our resources so that we can continue fishing, we need some information about how much fishing is happening now, such as how many people are fishing, and how often do they go? How many fish do they catch on each trip, and how does that add up? We also wanted to know how that compared from island to island.ĮS: So how did you get the catch numbers for each island? KM: We put all the existing data that we could find into models to estimate the total annual catch by gear type (e.g., pole and line) at the island level. The data that we used came from both the commercial and the non-commercial fishing sectors, including subsistence and cultural fishing. Nearshore fisheries make up less than 2 percent of the reported commercial fishing here in Hawaiʻi, so we really needed to look at the non-commercial sector to better understand the whole story. We looked at the data from multiple sources to compile and estimate how many people were fishing at each island, how many trips they were taking each year and how many fish they were catching on each trip. KM: The amount of non-commercial fish caught near the shores of Hawaiʻi is massive. Non-commercial fisheries produce more than five times the catch from commercial fisheries - and they make up about 84 percent of the total nearshore catch. Over the span of one year, non-commercial catch is about 900,000 kilograms (about 2 million pounds) compared with commercial nearshore catch, which is under 200,000 kilograms (about 500,000 pounds). This data on nearshore fisheries will hopefully help do two things: to give fishers a voice in the local management of these areas and to make the case for increased funding to develop sustainability initiatives for nearshore fisheries, which will ensure healthy, abundant fish populations for the future.ĮS: Now that you’ve got the data, how can it be used? The fact that these numbers are so large adds value to the non-commercial and subsistence fisheries - and shows the importance of people catching fish for cultural, subsistence and recreational reasons (rather than commercial).
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