A proposal by the National Marine Fisheries Service to allow unlimited fishing trips by Hawai'i's longline swordfish vessels has come under fire by conservation groups that argue this would lead to a greater number of endangered sea turtles being killed or seriously injured.

In addition to removing a limit on each boat's fishing trips, the proposal would increase the number of allowable "interactions" with the threatened loggerhead sea turtle from 17 to 46 a year. The number of allowed interactions, defined as by hook or entanglement in nets, with endangered leatherback turtles would remain at 16 per year.

Several conservation organizations yesterday criticized the planned changes, saying they could lead to nearly three times as many endangered sea turtles being killed or injured as currently permitted.

The state's 30 swordfish boats are limited to a combined total of 2,120 sets, or fishing trips, each year. With no limit on the number of sets, the likelihood of more turtles being caught in nets or by hooks will increase, the groups charge.

"They've gone to the Fisheries Service and said, essentially, 'We want to fish until we kill this number of turtles,' " said Paul Achitoff, managing attorney for Earthjustice in Hawai'i. "They're turning the swordfish fishery into a turtle fishing derby. 'As soon as you catch this number of turtles, the fishery closes. But not until then.' "

Not so, said Scott Barrows, general manager of the Hawai'i Longline Association.

Barrows said the state's fishing operators are among the most regulated in the world. He said an observer accompanies each vessel on every fishing trip to ensure that rules and regulations are followed.

BELOW LIMIT

Since the turtle interaction limits were put in place in 2004, he said, only once — in 2006 — did the swordfish boats reach the limit. He said with new fishing techniques and hooks, very few turtles are being killed or injured.

Barrows said his organization has been working with the Fisheries Service and Western Pacific Fishery Management Council for three years to come up with a plan that will help the swordfish fishery, as well as protect the sea turtles.

"We asked them to increase the number of sets because we weren't interacting with turtles as much as they had thought and the turtles that we did interact with, the mortality was much lower than they thought," Barrows said.

He said a problem in the past was that no one really knew how many turtles were being caught or killed. But with observers on each trip, an accurate count can be kept, Barrows said.

In 1999, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the swordfish longline industry because of its impact on endangered turtles. U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued an injunction that shut down the fishery.

CAP ON INTERACTIONS

In 2004, the Fisheries Service reopened the swordfish fishery, with several restrictions. Among them were the number of fishing trips allowed, which were half of what they were at the time of the lawsuit. New fishing gear, and limits on turtle takes were also required.

The Fisheries Service said the changes have reduced the number of interactions with loggerheads by 90 percent and with leatherbacks by 83 percent. Changing the rules, the service said, isn't expected to increase the turtle interactions.

"This proposed rule intends to optimize the harvest of swordfish and other fish, without jeopardizing the continued existence and recovery of threatened and endangered sea turtles and other protected species," the Fisheries Service said in its proposal.

But Achitoff said the turtles are so threatened that they could be extinct within a few years.

"The leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles are acknowledged by experts as being in risk of extinction over the next few decades," Achitoff said. "It just makes no sense at all to be increasing the risk of this extinction."

Barrows said the last thing his industry wants is for turtles to be killed or maimed.

"If we hit the cap, the fishery is over. They end the fishery for the year," he said. "The year that they did have to close the fishery that hurt, because a lot of boats were told all at one time that they couldn't fish anymore."