Ocean Watch

Friday,  April 09, 2004

While dining with a marine biologist friend this week, I complained that some guy has been bugging me to write about laynets. This man represents a group of concerned fishers, marine scientists and managers who support a state-proposed ban on laynet fishing in Hawaii.

"Why don't you want to write about it?" my friend asked.

"There's not much to say," I said. "Laynets are bad. Ban them. Short column."

"There's much more to it," she said. "What's a laynet? Why are they bad? What are arguments for them? Who ...?"

She went on and she was right. The Department of Land & Natural Resources' bold, uphill battle to ban laynets deserves attention.

First, some definitions. A gillnet is a general term for a net that catches fish by letting its head get through the mesh but not its body. When a fish tries to back out, the net's filaments slip under its gills, and the fish is stuck.

Gilled fish struggle to get away until they die from exhaustion. Those that do wiggle free often die from damage to their gills, spines, legs or flippers. Turtles caught in the nets sometimes drown.

A laynet is a gillnet standing up, like a fence, with floats on the top and weights on the bottom. Fishers leave laynets in place for several hours, then retrieve them and whatever got caught in them.

And therein lies the problem. Anything larger around than the current minimum mesh size of 234 inches gets snared in these strong nylon walls.

Because of this, laynets have a devastating impact on nearshore fisheries. Florida banned laynets in 1995, and California, Oregon and Washington all have bans or severe restrictions on their use.

Hawaii allows it. Oh, we have some rules. Maximum time a laynet can be in the water is four hours, with required inspections for turtles and other bycatches every two hours. Of course, with no money for enforcement, some netters ignore these rules. And even if the rules are followed, the effect is still ruinous.

One argument for continuing laynetting is that it's a Hawaiian tradition.

Not true. Japanese fishermen introduced gillnets here after World War II. Banning laynets might be the end of some anglers' family tradition, but it's one that started in the '50s.

Since then, nearshore fish catches here have plummeted. In 1950, fishers landed about 100,000 pounds of o'io (bonefish). Since 1990, the catch has been fewer than 10,000 pounds per year.

A similar decline exists in moana, weke, kumu (all goatfish) and moi (threadfins).

Laynetters argue there's no proof their nets cause this depletion. They blame other fishing methods, marine pollution and habitat destruction.

Other fishing methods, however, don't kill everything that swims past them. Plus, fish are thriving in the Ala Wai Canal and Pearl Harbor, two of the most polluted and habitat-altered areas on Oahu.

States that have banned laynets report tremendous recovery of their nearshore fisheries.

Outlawing laynets will be hard on a couple of hundred families on Oahu, but not banning them hurts hundreds of thousands. You can help DLNR managers save our fish and turtles by writing to or speaking at upcoming public hearings (to be announced).

Laynets are bad. Ban them. Long column.