HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0333.145 2010-2012Murashige, Laura
From: Tina Owens [tinaowens @hawaii.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 12:55 PM
To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Testimony in opposition to RES 130 -11 (to be heard Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011)
Dear Chair Yagong and all Council Members,
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Recently I testified before you in opposition of a similar resolution (RES 140 -11), and I wasgrate}.f I toy..: j
see that the Hawaii County Council voted it down. I know that most people assume the 1 am it favor"`
of this resolution and the bill that it wishes to send to the legislature. I am not in favor,lnd hem is
why:
The bill for the legislature which is attached to this resolution makes no sense:
a) By defining "aquarium fishing" as taking anything out of the ocean, it makes outlaws out
of every fisherman.
b) By banning the sale of this marine life, any fisherman who sells catch commercially, even
supermarkets and restaurants, will be violating the law.
c) It talks about issuing aquarium licenses but forbids the sale of these fish. What are they
going to do with them? Does this mean anyone collecting fish for a home aquarium must have a
license?
Does this requirement mean that if fish die in a home aquarium the family is in violation of
the law?
d) And if it is illegal to sell aquarium fish, they why do they need duplicate receipts if sales
cannot happen?
If this resolution were truly only about the aquarium trade, why does the attached bill address
completely NON - aquarium issues, such as prohibiting the use of gill nets completely, despite the years
of work by the WHFC to come up with reasonable regulations, which the state eventually adopted?
Why does it strike out the section establishing no -take areas, an initiative that will provide MORE
protection for all reef life?
The primary proponents of this resolution are not even from this island. The presentations they have
been making locally to garner support are based on a lot of cherry - picked, manipulated data, much of
which is grossly out of date. Although clothed in the very popular idea of banning aquarium collecting,
it's also an attempt to undo all the other marine resource management that we have set up here in
West Hawaii.
There is a small group of people on Maui who, for their own reasons * *, want to ban aquarium
collecting, but as long as the efforts in West Hawaii are successful, the legislators will never ban it. Our
lawmakers would prefer to try the kind of management that West Hawaii has pioneered. Therefore,
the proponents of this resolution must try to discredit the West Hawaii Fisheries Council and must try
to undo the regulations we have spent 13 years putting into place. Even so, they have virtually NO
Comm. No. 3 3 3, Air
Ref. To: Cfk'1.4 l
Ref. Date OCT 5 2011.
10/2/2011
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chance of getting a ban in legislature. So, they will have wrecked our efforts and replaced it with
nothing. We'll be back to the way it was in 1990.
Chair Yagong and members of the Council, I respectfully ask that you defeat this resolution. It is not
good for anyone here in West Hawaii.
Sincerely,
Tina Owens
LOST FISH Coalition
P.O.Box 390508
Kailua -Kona, HI 96739
* *Maui doesn't really have an aquarium collecting problem. There are only two or three collectors and
the numbers of animals caught are very small. This is primarily, in my opinion, an ego- driven initiative.
10/2/2011