Help Identify the Culprit

[Shaka Doug]

So if they know it was the Akule Fishermen how hard can it be to track them down? Here on Maui I used to see some guys come back with boats overloaded with akule. (I'm talking about overflowing over the gunwhales! I don't even know how the boat was able to float.) Anyway, it was always the same group and same boat. To my knowledge there are not all that many people who still do this type of fishing to begin with. Surely someone must have seen them at the boat harbor. Go down there and ask the regulars what they saw that day. At Kihei small boat harbor there are plenty of regulars who are quite aware of the day to day activites that take place there. Something like this surely would have been noticed by someone.

I wonder if the diver in the picture is even certified. If so, wasn't he taught about not standing on the reef? The fish and the net is more important to him. He needs to learn that he is shooting himself in the foot and killing the goose that lays the golden eggs with his actions.

So sad to see. You know what? This stuff makes me mad. Enjoy our ocean as much as you can now but PLEASE RESPECT IT and TAKE CARE OF IT! The Carribbean diving is gonna suck this summer and maybe forever...today I heard the Gulf is 30% closed from the oil spill after only 44 days! Does anyone know what the Cayman Islands are gonna go through? They'll be surrounded by oily water. I cry just thinking about it. What's hurricane season going to do to it? (Yesterday officially started Hurricane season by the way.) My prediction is that We (HAWAII) are gonna become "The Beach for the entire United States" pretty soon. Anyone agree? What a shame.

Please protect our ocean! Hopefully they catch these guys and make an example from them. To know that what he is doing is wrong yet continue to do what he is doing means he does not know it is wrong. Someone over there needs to straighten them out.

 

[rgbmatt]

It shouldn't be hard to figure out who these guys are. Akule fishing is a pretty big job, and each island only has a small number of crews who are able to do it. If the incident was well documented, DLNR should be able to do something about it.

This is a real shame. I know a couple of the akule net fishermen on Oahu - they're great guys who love the ocean, take good care of it, and would never set nets in such a destructive way. It sucks when one bad apple gives everyone a bad image like this.

 

[polyester1970]

Hey Doug, we're going off topic but I feel you. I am SOOOO mad about this spill I seriously want to cry. This is the bad movie all of us environmentalist have been warning about for decades...then you have, i can't even think of a suitable insulting word, people like Palin who, in a time like this, keep making her "Drill, Baby, Drill" argument! Just today, she posted this ridiculous article on FB that says environmentalists who get in the way of domestic drilling are making the environment worse because we in the US have higher safety and environmental standards!?!?! WTF?

These dispersants are going to seriously hurt almost all marine life including whale sharks - and this stuff is spreading like crazy...this stuff chews up O2 and is sucking the oxygen out of the water it affects. And this stuff makes oil look like food and all sorts of marine life is going to be choking this stuff up and dying.

BTW...if you look at the gulf states that are going to get slicked...they all voted for Palin, but too bad this thing is going to spread to areas and affect species that didn't get a vote.

 

[joe8mofo]

people like Palin who, in a time like this, keep making her "Drill, Baby, Drill" argument! Just today, she posted this ridiculous article on FB that says environmentalists who get in the way of domestic drilling are making the environment worse because we in the US have higher safety and environmental standards!?!?! WTF?

BTW...if you look at the gulf states that are going to get slicked...they all voted for Palin, but too bad this thing is going to spread to areas and affect species that didn't get a vote.

polyester1970,

Your ignorance is both amusing and sad, and since you added to the detraction of this somewhat useful thread I WILL comment on it.

It is surprising to me that you bring Palin into this, while yes, many people consider her to be an idiot; she had nothing to do with the oil disaster in the gulf.

In reference to your ignorance, do you really believe that who you vote for makes a difference in relation to drilling safety and whether or not drilling will take place? As history has shown that it makes no difference, wake up. This disaster occurred under your apparently ideal democratic administration's watch. And after it occurred the administration has done nothing effective of or considerable value in response to this disaster other than say "BP has got this." If it is not apparent that the majority of politicians are in the back pockets of large corporations, including the Obama administration; let this disaster be a lesson.

So the takeaway should be:

1. Palin had nothing to do with this disaster, so why bring her up?
2. Politicians are often under the control of corporations, so vote for McCain or Obama it doesn't matter as the outcome for this disaster would likely have been the same from either camp.
3. The current administration has taken no action to properly handle this situation, so why dis palin and not them? (oh yes, you voted for "them" didnt you....tsssk tsssk)
4. BP will do what is cost-effective in dealing with this disaster and not what is effective; which is why this should have been run by the current administration from the start.
5. An emotional, political response to a national disaster has no place here on SCUBABOARD.

 

[Angry Turtle]

please....keep it on topic

 

[Cave Diver]

So, here is a stupid question...

Someone was around and managed to get pics of the guy at the bottom. Why didn't they wait til he surfaced and find out who he was and exactly what was going on?

 

[Thalassamania]

Welcome to Hawaii, reasonable questions like that go unanswered all the time.

 

[polyester1970]

I'll take this offline

 

[Thalassamania]

From: West Hawaii Today, Thursday, June 10, 2010


Use a kapu system, preserve resources

By Kekaulike Tomich
Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:09 AM HST
My name is Kekaulike Tomich, I am of Kaupulehu Kona. I am writing this because I am greatly concerned about the future of our ocean. I am only 20 years old and in my short life I have seen the fish populations decimated. Our society is about to hit the wall and realize how we fish today is not sustainable. I fear that in another 10 years there will be no fish. There are many things affecting fish populations: pollution (plastics, fertilizers, chemicals, run off, etc.), invasive species (roi, taape), and overfishing.

In old Hawaii there was a mind set, a culture of sustainability, an understanding that natural resources needed to be conserved. The people lived with the values of malama aina and malama kai, to care for the land and the sea. The people were in touch with nature, and the ia. The people knew the different cycles of a fishes life and how best to preserve the resource for future generations. The people stayed within their own ahupuaa and wouldn't use resources from another. They had to preserve what was in their own ahupuaa. With the coming of foreigners, their cultures, influences and diseases the Hawaiian culture, indigenous knowledge and understanding of conservation began its demise. Today we no longer live in an ahupaa system, people are able to use resources from all around the island and no longer feel connected to their ahupuaa and their kuleana. Today fishing is often seen as a sport, not a means of sustenance; the people have become disconnected from nature.

Today people fish for sport, not necessarily for food. For example the ulua 100 plus club, fishing tournaments, Hawaii Fishing News, Hawaii Skin diver, Maui Sporting Goods ect... What do people do with those 100- pound ulua? Some eat them, while others take pictures or mount them then throw the meat away because the meat is generally not that good; it tends to be tough, burned from the lactic acid, or have ciguatera. The same holds true with the 1,000-pound marlin, minus the cigautera. We are catching them for sport, not necessarily food. When we gut these mammoth animals, we've all noticed the white or orange sacks. Those are 100,000s of eggs that won't be born that we won't be able to catch later because we needed to feel the tug and fight and feel good about ourselves conquering and killing the 1,000-pound bad boy, which half the time is a pregnant girl.

In managing animals for food, we generally keep the older larger animals as the breeding stock and eat their babies. Why isn't this true for fishing.

The Hawaiians of old knew this, some older Hawaiian fishermen know this, marine biologist know this, but the public doesn't know this. An example of this is the opihi the koele, you would never pick the koele because they make the most eggs. But with today's mentality we pick the koele and the keiki, pound 'em with no thought of what are we going to pick tomorrow. When we go holoholo, do we really need to fill our kui, our cooler, the dinner table, the freezer and our friend's dinner table and freezer? A pono fisherman leaves fish for tomorrow.

I hear some say, "I gotta get ' em before the Micronesian or somebody else get ' em."

To this I say that's their problem, don't become part of the problem, become part of the solution.

The next time you see somebody pounding tell them, "Eh, pono fishermen leave fish for tomorrow" or ask them a simple question: "What you going catch next year?"

In managing our marine resources, don't wait for the government, there is too much bureaucratic bs and not enough money for it to properly manage our resources. We need to take it upon ourselves like the peoples of Moomomi Molokai. They know when the fish in their area will be breeding; they put up a kapu themselves, they don't wait around for 76 people in Honolulu who don't fish to decide how their resources are to be managed. They have established a modern kapu system. The kapu and ahupuaa systems of old were established to manage/protect the natural resources. People of one ahupuaa didn't fish in another, the kapu system kept them from overexploiting the resources within their limited space. But today people aren't restricted to one spot, so once we decimate one area we can always move to the next, but pretty soon there won't be anywhere else to go.

There should be areas closed in the long term to fishing. When an area is closed, the fish are allowed generally to breed undisturbed. There becomes abundance, an overpopulation of fish in that area, some need to migrate to a new area, an open area, where they could easily be caught. But if areas are established, don't expect results overnight, fish take many years to reach breeding size and many more years to become prolific.

Some may say, "I am Hawaiian, I can fish where I like." To them I say, I am Hawaiian; we need to conserve these fish for my keiki -- and yours.

In short, E malama kakou i ka honua.

Pono fishermen leave fish for tomorrow

Fishing is not a sport it is a means of sustenance

Catch the medium ones

Take only what you are going eat

Notice when get eggs and impose a self kapu and let your friends know

We need closed areas

Kekaulike Tomich lives in Kona

 

[The Chairman]

Good luck!