I first went to Hawaii on assignment for CORAL Magazine in 2010, and for the better part of four years I have covered that state’s aquarium fishery. I expected to find a fishery full of complicated regulations and even more complicated conflict. I found the latter in spades, but the former, to my surprise, didn’t really exist. Regulations were relatively few and far between—no total allowable catches (TACs), no quotas, no bag limits, no limited entry. I was, quite frankly, shocked that a commercial fishery in U.S. waters would be so unregulated. The fishers I interviewed, especially on Big Island, didn’t view it that way. Many felt they were being unfairly targeted and that veils of regulation were being drawn around them like the barrier nets they use to catch aquarium fishes. Some felt they had consistently given ground, made concessions in the face of anti-trade activism. Some were ready to make a stand, saying they couldn’t—wouldn’t—give any more. Some of these fishers opposed the rules package just signed by the governor. A few of them still oppose it, although they are not willing to say so on the record. Those fishers who stand in opposition to the new rules have some strange MORE: An Aquarist’s Notes: Turbulence in Hawaii… More:
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