With the stroke of a pen on Thursday, 2 August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that bans the sale of Pacific billfish caught in U.S. waters in the 48 contiguous states.
Sponsored by U.S. Representative Darren Soto (D-Florida), H.R. 4528 closes a loophole in the Billfish Conservation Act. That law, passed in 2012, banned the importation of billfish, which includes marlin, sailfish, and spearfish, in the continental United States. However, recreational fishing groups, who support catch-and-release fisheries, and some environmental organizations feared foreign-flagged ships would simply land in Hawaii or a U.S. territory in the Pacific as a workaround to the BCA.
“This law solidifies the original intent of the Billfish Conservation Act in that no marlin, sailfish, or spearfish are to be sold in the continental United States— regardless of where it is caught,” said Jason Schratwieser, conservation director for the International Game Fish Association, in a press release celebrating the bill becoming a law.
However, the measure is not without its share of critics, namely commercial fishing interests in Hawaii, who fear their businesses will suffer from the loss of market access. Considering that one of the Trump administration’s major commerce issues is reducing the seafood trade deficit, they believe this law runs counter to that objective.
“For the continental U.S. to not have a source of domestic landed seafood, it’s obviously going to create a larger (trade) deficit,” Mike Goto, operations manager for the Honolulu Fish Auction, told SeafoodSource.
Goto, a member of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, said he understands the intent to protect fish stocks, but he and others don’t believe the law should impact what even federal officials consider a healthy stock.
According to The Billfish Foundation, a 2016 assessment of eastern and western Atlantic sailfish stocks indicated both saw their steepest biomass drops prior to 1990. The foundation said there are significant concerns about the status of both, but the future does look a little brighter for the western Atlantic stock.
The Atlantic stocks have not been made available for commercial fishing in 30 years.
In the Pacific, though, the state of most of the billfish stocks are stronger. In a December 2017 letter to the council, Chris Oliver assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries said only one Pacific billfish stock – the striped marlin – suffers from being overfished or is subject to overfishing.
In June 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wrote a letter to Kitty Simonds, the WPFMC’s executive director, acknowledging the stock is small but important to the region.
According to the council, more than 550,000 pounds of billfish are caught by U.S. commercial fishermen in Hawaii and other U.S. Pacific islands. In 2017, the harvest had a dockside value of USD 830,000 (EUR 715,600). That amount increased to USD 2.5 million (EUR 2.2 million) once wholesale and retail values are factored.
In Hawaii, commercial fishermen caught 39.2 million pounds of fish overall in 2017, according to the council. That haul produced USD 110.8 million (EUR 95.5 million) in revenue.
“We believe this legislation would not advance the conservation of billfish significantly, and would block a small amount of sustainably harvested domestic product from entering commerce on the U.S. mainland,” Ross wrote.
For now, though, Hawaii will have to absorb the billfish that would have been shipped to the mainland. As far as what will happen with longline and other fishermen who bring in billfish, Goto said the future is uncertain.
“We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens,” he said. “Fortunately, we’re a very versatile industry.”
Photo courtesy of Andres Carrasco Martinez/Billfish Foundation
