Hawaii Fishing Fleet Is Changing Gear To Help Protect Endangered Sharks… The changes are being lauded as significant steps. But they won’t go far enough if other countries’ fleets don’t follow suit.
The Hawaii Longline Association announced this week it’s making key changes to its fleet’s fishing equipment to help the imperiled oceanic whitetip shark stave off extinction.
Specifically, by July, crews aboard the fleet’s 140 or so vessels plan to replace the steel wire fishing leaders at the ends of their fishing lines with ones made from less-lethal nylon, or monofilament, according to HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma.
The move should at least somewhat help the endangered and overfished sharks, local fishing officials and industry watchdogs say, because they can bite through the nylon more easily and free themselves when they’re inadvertently caught.
