Lucrative Pacific whiting fishery shut down

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – The second most valuable commercial fishery on the West Coast has been shut down for the rest of the year after investigators found evidence a fishing boat and a processing plant were illegally dumping unwanted fish.

Fishing for Pacific whiting would have been shut down early this year anyway, with about a quarter of the annual quota of 208,000 metric tons uncaught, because so many widow rockfish were being taken inadvertently as bycatch, said John DeVore, groundfish staff officer for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets fishing seasons.

But the action points out the difficulties of exploiting healthy stocks of fish – in this case Pacific whiting – without exceeding caps meant to protect species like widow rockfish that were overfished for years – and the temptation to break the rules when a lot of money is at stake.

“Where there are huge financial incentives to hide fish, I think monitoring has to be a very important and integral part of the regulatory regimen we put together,” said Capt. Mike Cenci, of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We’re going to have to start looking hard at finding ways to increase officer presence in all three states, Washington, California and Oregon.”

With global demand for fish strong and quotas on many other species restricted, prices for Pacific whiting – or hake – have risen from 2 cents a pound three years ago to 6 cents a pound and more now, making it the second most valuable fishery on the West Coast, worth $36 million to fishermen last year, according to NOAA Fisheries. Only Dungeness crab earns more.

Since 2005, strict caps have been put on the amount of rockfish taken inadvertently, known as bycatch. To keep track, observers are stationed on the big catcher-processor ships and mother ships that process fish caught by trawlers. But monitoring of processing plants on shore is sporadic, Cenci said. Trawlers that deliver to shoreside plants have onboard video cameras.

Though still under a rebuilding program, widow rockfish have been recovering faster than expected, and this year’s whiting season was tough from the start because boats were catching lots of widow rockfish, said Rod Moore, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association.

“There was just absolute panic in the fleet,” Moore said. “Nobody wanted to be the guy who shut down the fishery because of bycatch. This guy came up with a bunch of widows and panicked and did something stupid and unlawful.”

On July 17, Cenci got word that fish were washing up dead on the beach near Oysterville, Wash. With a mix of widow rockfish, whiting and salmon among the 3,000 pounds of dead fish, it was obvious a fisherman had dumped his net rather than report the bycatch, Cenci said.

State and federal officers began interviewing crews on the 40 boats in the whiting fleet. Meanwhile, members of the fleet put pressure on the fisherman to turn himself in, which he did, said Moore.

The fisherman told officers he disabled the video camera trained on his deck and dumped his catch, Cenci said. The fisherman has not been charged, but faces up to $130,000 in civil penalties. His identity was not released.

Meanwhile, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officer paid a 3 a.m. visit to a processing plant in Grays Harbor County and found a container filled with rockfish headed for a grinder. That processor has not been charged.