Monday, November 22, 2021 | Today's Paper | 74.588°

Honolulu-The Hawaii chapter of the Surfers Foundation is launching the North Pacific Hagfish trap project to reduce the number of hagfish traps washing the coastline of the state.

Hagfish traps are used to catch a primitive eel-like animal called "slime eel" or "hagfish". These animals are almost exclusively sold in the Korean market as food or used in "eel skin" products such as wallets and boots.

“Every hagfish trap found on a Hawaiian beach travels thousands of miles in ocean currents to get here,” said Lauren Blickley, Hawaii Regional Manager of the Surfers Foundation. "There are no hagfish fishing boats in the area. All this pollution comes from other places."

Lost and discarded fishing gear is the main cause of plastic pollution on Hawaiian beaches and poses a major threat to marine and coastal ecosystems. However, given its international scope, wide geographic scope and difficulty in tracing the source of fishing gear, abandoned fishing gear remains a challenging problem. Hagfish traps are one of many commercial fishing gear that pollutes Hawaii's coastline.

“The fact that the fishery is small in scale and the fishing gear is easily identifiable makes it an ideal type of fishing gear for this type of trans-Pacific cooperation,” said Dr. Carl Berg, a scientist at the Kauai branch of the Surfers Foundation of the project. “Our number one The first step is to figure out which fishery the traps in Hawaii come from. Then we can start working directly with fishermen and fishery managers to develop fair solutions."

This year, the Surfers Foundation’s Kauai chapter and partner organizations Hawaii Wildlife Foundation, SHARKastics and Pulama Lana'i have removed more than 3,000 hagfish from the coastlines of Kauai, Hawaii, Maui and Lanai trap. It has also established a cooperative relationship with OSEAN.net in South Korea.

These traps will not only lead to a global plastic pollution pandemic, but also harm marine animals, especially the endangered Hawaiian monk seal cubs. Young Hawaiian monk seals may pinch the funnel-shaped trap part on their nose, causing wear, infection, starvation and eventually death. In the past 20 years, 13 seal pups and one one-year-old seal have been found entangled in hagfish traps in the islands of northwestern Hawaii. However, the actual number of tangles in hagfish traps may be underestimated.

The Surfers Foundation encourages beach cleanup organizations and individuals to record the time they took to remove hagfish traps from the beach and send an email to hagfish@surfrider.org. Information on where to send hagfish traps will be provided via email. Blickley points out that hagfish traps are most likely to be found on windward coastlines.

The North Pacific Hagfish trap project not only represents one of the first trans-Pacific partnerships between community organizations, fishermen, and fisheries managers to reduce pollution from abandoned fishing gear in Hawaii, but also serves as a replicable model for future international efforts. Reduction in other types of discarded fishing gear.

"We have done a lot of work in Hawaii to reduce local plastic pollution, such as single-use plastics. Now is the time to shift our focus to marine pollution, especially pollution from commercial fisheries," Blickley said.

Very good work! The work you do is so important! I hope you can greatly reduce or eliminate this marine pollution.

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