11/09/2004

By JEFF BARNARD  / Associated Press

West Coast fisheries managers are focusing on kelp and seagrass beds and rocky reefs as places to protect from damage caused by fishing boats that drag their nets along the bottom.

Meeting in Portland last week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council endorsed a group of alternatives that will be evaluated to update the plan that guides management of the groundfish fishery.

The foundation of commercial fishing on the West Coast, groundfish are the scores of fish species that live on the ocean bottom, such as rockfish and Dover sole, and are the foundation of commercial fishing on the West Coast. Fishing boats take them with nets, strings of baited hooks known as longlines and traps placed on the bottom.

The changes being considered would impose restrictions on types of fishing gear, such as the size of rollers allowed on bottom trawling nets, and create no-fishing zones to protect places such as kelp beds, coral beds, seagrass beds and rocky reefs where fish spawn and feed.

"This is a giant step forward to real habitat protection in America's waters," said Jim Ayers, director of the Pacific area for Oceana, an environmental group that brought a lawsuit that has speeded up the timetable for habitat protection by the council and developed one of the alternatives getting further consideration.

One groundbreaking proposal from the Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense endorsed for further review would compensate fishermen, fish processors and fishing communities if bottom trawlers are barred from fishing around Monterey Bay, Calif.

"In the long term this strategy could expand on a national basis if not an international basis," said Steve Copps, senior policy analyst for NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency developing the environmental impact statement with the council. "We have such a limited toolbox for conservation that it's exciting when a new management tool pops up."

Under terms of a court order, the final mix of changes to the groundfish management plan are due in February 2006.

In recent years, groundfish have been declared an economic disaster, due to a combination of overfishing and poor ocean conditions that forced sharp cutbacks in harvests.

As harvest quotas declined, the groundfish fleet cut itself by a third to reduce fishing and give the boats that remained a better living.

While some species are rebounding, council members said they feel it is time to protect habitat as a way to assure the fishery thrives in the future.

Council Chairman Donald K. Hansen, who owns a charter fishing business in Orange County, Calif., said he has been involved in fisheries management since 1974, but did not realize until recently how widespread and important habitats such as coral reefs are.

"I'm looking to save as much habitat as we can possibly save," said Hansen. "I have 14 grandchildren. I want someplace out there for them all to fish."

Council member Phil Anderson, a special assistant to the director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the council is reacting to changes to federal fisheries law and to an increased emphasis on protecting undersea habitat by bodies such as the U.S. Ocean Policy Commission.

"Fishery management in the past has not paid enough attention to protecting habitat, essential fish habitat, in designing their fishing regulations," said Anderson. "On a national level there is a value being brought forward, there is almost a mandate being brought forward."

The Oceana alternative calls for freezing the area where bottom trawlers now fish to prevent them from causing damage to pristine habitats, and designates places such as coral beds, kelp beds, sea canyons and sea mounts as places where bottom trawlers cannot drag their nets. It also limits the size of the rollers on bottom trawler nets to keep them from fishing in rough rocky areas where they would otherwise get stuck.

Pete Leipzig of the Fishermen's Marketing Association, which represents groundfish trawlers, said he is not convinced fishermen are harming habitat.

"People are fishing the same places with trawl gear they have been fishing for over 100 years, and the fish are still there," he said. "If you got into coral it would be a very hard substance that would damage your gear. That's where fishermen don't go. If you want to protect them, that's fine, but you are protecting them from something that is not occurring."