Technological and Economic Interrelationships in Hawaii's Troll and Handline Fisheries

—This paper examines technological and economic interrelationships in Hawaii’s troll and handline fisheries. A multiproduct dual revenue function was specified separately for the two fisheries to estimate own-price, cross-price, and effort elasticities of supply for selected species or groups of species. Various aspects of multiproduct cost structure were also analyzed with the information contained in the revenue function model. The null hypothesis of nonjointness in inputs was rejected for the troll fishery but not for the handline fishery. Thus, single-species management may be inappropriate for the former but appropriate for the latter. The acceptance of the input– output separability hypothesis in both fisheries suggests that management of the whole multispecies fishery, rather than regulation of a few key species, may be warranted. Own-price and cross-price elasticity estimates for the troll fishery suggest that the fishers’ output supply decisions depend on prices and that pairs of individual species are either substitutes or complements in production. However, in the handline fishery, neither the individual species’ own prices nor the prices of other species were found to affect the output supply decisions. Output supplies under both fisheries were positively affected by the effort level. Both fisheries were characterized by cost anticomplementarities, decreasing multiproduct economies of scale, and inelastic cost elasticities. Pelagic species dominate Hawaii’s commercial and recreational fisheries, although bottom fish1 and lobster2 are also important. Because of the presence of several fish species in the ocean and the technological structure of fishing vessels, all these fisheries are multispecies in nature. Using different types of vessels (size, tonnage, etc.) and effort (trip length, crew size, gears, etc.), the pe* Corresponding author: [email protected] Received March 25, 2002; accepted December 30, 2002 1 Major species caught by Hawaii’s bottom fishery are Von Siebold’s snapper Pristipomoides seiboldii, pink snapper P. microlepis, Brigham’s snapper P. zonatus, squirrelfish snapper Etelis carbunculus, Opakapaka P. filamentosus, and Seale’s grouper (sea bass) Epinephelus quernus. 2 The commercial lobster fishery targets two species, the Hawaiian spiny lobster Panulirus marginatus and the common slipper lobster Scyllarides squammosus. Small quantities of the green spiny lobster P. penicillatus and the ridgeback slipper lobster S. haanii are also caught. lagic fisheries land more than 10 commercially important species for Hawaii’s market. Pelagic species are targeted by commercial, recreational, and part-time commercial (expense boat) vessels (Hamilton et al. 1996; Hamilton and Huffman 1997). Large (.35 ft in length) commercial vessels include longline vessels targeting bigeye tuna Thunnus obesus and swordfish Xiphias gladius and pole-and-line boats targeting skipjack tuna (also known as aku) Katsuwonus pelamis. The smaller commercial vessels, as well as recreational and expense boats, include handliners and trollers. Nonchartered trolling vessels are usually trailered boats ranging from 16 to 26 ft long. The handline boats engaged in nearshore fishing are about 23– 33 ft long (WPRFMC 1995). Trolling involves towing lures or baited hooks behind a moving vessel, whereas handlining involves dangling baited hooks from a stationary or drifting vessel. A baited hook or hooks in a chummed bundle at the end of the handline is laid against a stone and the line wound around it. The bundle is lowered to the D ow nl oa de d by [ U ni ve rs ity o f H aw ai i a t M an oa ] at 1 7: 10 2 6 Ja nu ar y 20 12