Did It Work Politically? Yes. We were approached by our local State House Representative Paul Whalen (now State Senator Whalen) to see how he could be of service to us. He wrote us a bill and we were on our way! In the long run, Rep. Whalen's bill was replaced by another bill authored by Rep. David Tarnas. The LOST FISH Coalition swung all its weight behind the new bill and faxed in hundreds of copies of testimonies of support that we had collected in advance and held until the right time to send them to the capitol. And it worked!! In a little less than a year we had gotten the State to pass Act 306 of the 1998 Hawaii State Legislature. This law, written as Hawaii Revised Statute 188F, set aside the entire western shoreline of the Island of Hawaii as a Fisheries Management Area and mandated that at least 30% of that shoreline be set aside as off-limits areas for tropical fish collecting. These off-limits areas, known as Fish Replenishment Areas, or FRAs, were finalized as nine regions, and when coupled with the small areas which had already been protected, totalled about 35% -- more than 50 miles of shoreline! These FRAs officially went in to effect on Dec. 31, 1999. The law also included provisions for establishing a day-use mooring buoy system, addressing the problem of gill-netting and setting up a regional fisheries council of community members and stakeholders to act as an advisory council to the state in making decisions on most fishing matters affecting West Hawaii. It was a ground-breaking concept!

Are the Fish Coming Back? You bet they are! The time it takes for a newly-passed law to be written in regulatory form and then pass through the entire oversight procedure in the State of Hawaii takes from about 18 months to two years. Scientists saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study a reef before protection to establish a baseline and after protection to establish the degree of change. A group of scientists from the State of Hawaii, the University of Hawaii and Washington State University set up what is perhaps the world's largest on-going reef and fish survey. This survey is known as the West Hawaii Aquarium Project, or WHAP. WHAP has now finished its five-year review and the data shows that the target fish species (i.e. the most popularly collected fish for aquariums and therefore, the most heavily impacted species) have experienced large increases in the protected areas. The most recent data shows that spillover is beginning and even unprotected areas are starting to see a increase in target species.