ILLEGAL LAY NET CLAIMS HAMMERHEAD PUPS

Kaneohe, August 28, 2008 -- More than a dozen hammerhead shark pups died after being snared by a lay gill net left unattended near Waikalua Loko Fish Pond in Kaneohe Bay. A team from The Nature Conservancy found the abandoned net today.

Suzanne Case, executive director of the Conservancy’s Hawaii chapter, swam the length of the net and estimated it was more than 350 feet long, well beyond the legal limit of 125 feet. “Lay gill nets are indiscriminate killers and that makes them one of the most harmful fishing methods in our nearshore ocean,” she said. “Sharks are a vital part of maintaining a healthy reef ecosystem, and it saddens me to see this waste of Hawaii’s marine life.”

The Fair Catch campaign -- a partnership of The Nature Conservancy, Malama Hawaii and SeaWeb -- has called for a statewide ban on the use of lay gill nets and for better enforcement.

The use of lay gill nets has been severely restricted since last year with bans entirely around the island of Maui and in three nearshore areas of O’ahu (including parts of the South Shore, Kailua Bay and Kaneohe Bay). Across the state, nets can no longer be set overnight, must be registered and marked, and cannot be left unattended in the water for more than 30 minutes.

In a paper submitted to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources in 2006, four local marine scientists called lay gill nets the worst offenders in the precipitous decline of nearshore fisheries. Drs. John Randall, Charles Birkeland, Richard Pyle and Randall Kosaki said, “Our populations of fishes cannot be sustained if large-scale, indiscriminate and damaging fishing methods, such as use of lay gill nets, are allowed to continue.”

A Fair Catch poll found that 76 percent of Hawaii residents and 72 percent of the state’s recreational fishers support severe restrictions on lay gill nets.

MEDIA CONTACT: Shannon Crownover, (808) 587-6250