MONTEREY — An environmental nonprofit out of Monterey is applauding this year’s state budget that is funding a transition away from deadly gill-net fishing by awarding commercial fishermen cash for turning in their nets — nets that have ensnared endangered sea turtles heading into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Gill-net fishing involves a wall of netting that hangs in the water column, typically made of monofilament or multifilament nylon. They can stretch out for a mile, and at one time a couple of miles. They ensnare everything except for fish small enough to swim between the meshing.
Depending on the size of gill-net meshing, animals can become entangled around their necks, mouths and flippers, according to NOAA Fisheries, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Entanglement can prevent proper feeding, constrict growth or cause infections. Marine mammals entangled in set gill nets can drown.
They are called gill nets because when a fish enters the meshing and then tries to retreat, its gills become caught in the mesh. These nets are deployed outside of the marine sanctuary but can catch migratory marine wildlife that comes into sanctuary waters each year.
Off California’s Central Coast, the target species include swordfish, sharks and tuna. But they also have ensnared humpback and endangered fin whales, porpoises and dolphins, and seals and sea lions, in addition to leatherback sea turtles, NOAA Fisheries reports.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in his 2021-2022 fiscal year budget has allocated the final $1.3 million to an ongoing buy-back program to take gill nets out of the water, a move celebrated by Oceana, a nonprofit in Monterey that has pushed for the legislation.
Each fisherman who turns in gill nets will receive $110,000
Under state law, the entire fleet of gill-net permits in California will be phased out by 2024. In its place is a type of fishing called “deep-set buoy gear that is more selective,” said Geoff Shester, Oceana’s California campaign director.
This buoy gear used a hook-and-buoy array to target swordfish during the daytime in deep water, with hooks commonly set at depths below 250 meters, or roughly 800 feet. They are composed of strike-indicator buoys on the surface, a vertical mainline, baited hooks and a weighted sinker to ensure that hooks reach depth rapidly. They are designed to target swordfish without ensnaring other species.
“This innovative transition program will save whales, sea turtles and other ocean wildlife by removing harmful drift gill nets from our oceans and provide opportunities for California fishermen to catch swordfish with more selective methods like deep-set buoy gear,” Shester said.
But not everyone is keen on the project. Gary Burke fishes swordfish out of Santa Barbara and is a director of Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara. He turned down the buyout for a number of reasons, not least of which is the buyout price point of $110,000.
“Guys make that in one catch,” Burke said in an interview with The Herald. The costs of transitioning to another fishery can be far more than $110,000. Changing to squid fishing, for example, can cost up to $1 million, which most fishermen would need to borrow against their boats.
Burke maintains the by-catch, as snaring other species is called, is minimal and that the alternative of deep-set buoy fishing doesn’t bring in enough of a catch to be financially sustainable. Since the onset of the program in 2018, 27 vessels in his group fished for 1,062 days and caught 1,257 fish, or an average of 1.2 swordfish a day, not enough to sustain commercial boats.
He also argued the extent of by-catch is not as much as most people think, he said. There was one gray whale and “a handful of dolphins” caught in a five-year span, Burke said, and that 74% of fish caught in gill nets were sold, and that of the by-catch, 80% were released alive.
That compares to Oceana’s numbers it says are based on NOAA Fisheries data, that in a 10-year span, gill nets will capture 27 whales, 548 dolphins, 333 seals and sea lions and 24 sea turtles.
Burke also said— that while the U.S. and California are adopting stringent regulations on fishing to protect species like leatherbacks, the real harm is in places like Papua New Guinea and Indonesia where leatherbacks are hunted and their eggs are dug up, sometimes by wild pigs roaming the islands.
“If you want to help leatherbacks, that’s where you need to start,” Burke said.