Wespac Bans Wire Leaders To Help Reduce Shark Deaths
The Hawaii Longline Association announced last year that it would voluntarily replace those leaders with less-lethal gear.
Efforts to help the once-abundant oceanic whitetip shark stave off extinction got a slight boost this week as the council that oversees fishing interests across U.S.-controlled Pacific waters voted to ban wire leaders from deep-sea fishing gear.
Replacing those wire leaders at the ends of fishing lines with less-lethal nylon, or monofilament, can increase the chances of survival for the sharks that get hooked, officials say. The nylon material allows them to bite through and free themselves more easily.
On Tuesday, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, or Wespac, voted to prohibit the use of wire leaders in the deep-set longline fishery.
The move follows the local longliner industry鈥檚 decision late last year to voluntarily replace its wire leaders with nylon ones. The Hawaii Longline Association鈥檚 140 or so vessels inadvertently catch about 1,500 oceanic whitetips a year, according to its executive director, Eric Kingma.
The switch is expected to reduce shark mortalities on those lines by some 30%, according to a Wespac release.
However, to truly save the endangered and overfished shark, the numerous fishing fleets from other nations operating in the Pacific will have to follow suit, officials say.
, an officer for the Pew Charitable Trust鈥檚 international fisheries program, said she hoped the recent bans of wire leaders by Wespac and the HLA spur the international fishing community to take similar action.
鈥淭o promote recovery of oceanic whitetip across the Pacific, we encourage the U.S. to champion a measure at this year鈥檚 Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting that would require all vessels, not just those in U.S. waters, to switch to this less harmful gear,鈥 Miller said in a statement Tuesday.
