Posted on 11/26/2009 6:48:46 PM PST by Daffynition
PORTLAND, Maine ― Beneath the cold ocean waters off the coast of Maine, the nation's lobster breadbasket, lie hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of old wire lobster "ghost traps." Lost over the years to storms, boats — even the knives of fishermen who've cut them from their buoys to settle scores — many of the traps continue catching lobsters.
Marine biologists say lost and abandoned lobster, crab and other fish traps plague coastal waters around the globe, putting pressure on a number of already-stressed fish populations. In U.S. waters alone, millions of dollars' worth of marketable seafood is lost each year.
Lobstermen this winter will grapple up gear from selected spots in the first large-scale study of ghost traps along the Maine coast. Nationwide, other studies are focusing on lost traps off the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts.
"It would be very interesting if we could drain the ocean and look at what's down there," said Holly Bamford, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program. "We might be surprised."
The extent of Maine's ghost-trap problem isn't fully known, but lobstermen say they sometimes recover traps that contain skinny lobsters — ones that appear to have not eaten — or shells from lobsters that have starved and withered away to nothing or been eaten by other lobsters.
Most lobstermen feel it'll get worse with a new federal regulation requiring them to use a certain type of rope on their gear. The rope, they say, is prone to breaking and will result in even more lost traps.
Fishermen have been losing and discarding equipment for as long as they've plied the world's seas. But the range and impact of that refuse has grown in the past 50 years as fishing has increased, especially with more durable, non-biodegradable equipment.
The ability of lost lobster traps to continue fishing diminishes as the bait — herring or some other oily fish — dissipates. Still, scientists believe the traps continue catching lobsters, attracting creatures in search of shelter. And while the traps are required to have escape vents that break free over time, not all vents break free as intended.
"Ghost fishing" studies are under way or recently completed along all U.S. coasts. They include looks at Dungeness crab traps in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California; blue crab and sea bass traps off North Carolina; blue crab traps in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico; spiny lobster traps in Florida; and fish traps in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Other studies have looked at the impact of lost fishing nets found in Puget Sound in Washington and off the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where more than 600 tons of nets were collected.
In Maine, the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation has received a $200,000 grant to look at the issue. The foundation plans to recruit 10 lobstermen in each of seven Maine harbors to grapple for lost traps late this winter or early spring, said Laura Ludwig, who is heading the project.
The findings will be recorded and assessed in hopes of determining how effective the traps are at fishing after they've been lost in the deep. Depending on their condition, the recovered traps will be returned to their rightful owners, recycled or disposed of.
In Maine, where lobstermen actively fish more than 2 million traps, it's estimated that 5 to 10 percent — 100,000 to 200,000 — are lost in any given year. In a decade, that could be 1 or 2 million lost traps; if that's the case, there could be as many abandoned and lost traps off the Maine coast as ones currently in use.
Ben Crocker Jr., a lobsterman from Roque Bluffs in eastern Maine, says most lobstermen feel the lost traps aren't actively catching lobsters because they're so mangled and don't have bait in them.
"It's mostly just garbage on the bottom," he said.
Two winters ago, Ian Lussier of Owls Head grappled for lost traps with another lobsterman in Penobscot Bay and recovered several hundred traps in depths of 100 to 400 feet, he said. Some had tags showing they were owned by lobstermen who hadn't fished in more than a decade. Some traps were wooden, which haven't been used for the most part for 25 years.
How much lobster the traps are catching is almost a "non-issue" for Lussier because he believes so few are caught.
The bigger issue, he says, is a new federal regulation that aims to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales by outlawing use of floating rope that connects lobster traps on the ocean bottom and sometimes entangles the whales.
Lobstermen say the sinking rope sits on the rocky bottom, where it easily abrades and breaks free, resulting in more lost gear. Lussier said he lost 87 traps out of his 800 between April 5, when the rope law went into effect, and the middle of June, because the rope deteriorated on the rocky bottom.
"What's going to happen is more traps are going to build up on the bottom in areas where we have to use sinking line," Lussier said.
Worldwide, concerns about lost gear are growing.
Besides continuing to catch fish and shellfish, lost nets and traps have been known to snag whales, seabirds, turtles and other animals, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported this year. They can also hurt the benthic, or ocean-bottom, environment and create navigational hazards.
Frank Chopin, a senior fisheries officer with FAO in Rome, said more people are taking part in programs and campaigns to recover the gear. But there hasn't been a systematic approach to removing it.
"It's a complicated issue," he said. "And it's not going to go away."
Those rubber-dipped galvy cages would certainly last for decades underwater. The entire cage is dipped and the metal is sealed. The doors use rubber hinges. The entire point is to make them last forever. The solution is to make them with doors that will fall open after a few months.
And yes, the lobsters to “bait themselves.” I saw it myself in 80% of the dozens of lost traps I checked out. You would see shell parts, full carapaces, dead rotten bugs, new dead bugs, and live new bugs. It was a continuous chain of death-—for nothing. I love to eat em, but wiping them out stupidly for NOTHING is beyond stupid.
Ah ha, so I was right in my post #20. I had not read yours until after I posted.
It’s not a theory, it’s a fact I have seen with my own eyes a hundred times when diving in the Keys and Bahamas.
I don’t know anything about cold water traps, just the lobster (longusta spiny lobsters) traps in the FL Keys and Bahamas.
No “escape” hatches tied with string. In the Bahamas those rubber-dipped galvy cages were the WORST. Perpetual killing machines when they are lost. Saw it with my own eyes a hundred times.
Well, I would hope that the people trying to do the catching would see the mistake. There is a certain free-market component to this equation. Foxes and rabbits type. If they come close to wiping out the lobsters, they will stop fishing for them, and then the lobsters will return.
Hopefully, not with a vengeance!
I think the lobsterman in their boats just don’t see what’s going on down below like the divers do. They want simple, tough, zero maint. traps. And they have them! So zero maint that they’ll keep killing for years after the float and rope are gone.
These lobstermen are so stupid they are competing against 3 or 4 old lost traps for every one they have with a rope and a float. It used to piss me off so much, I’d sabotage them all, by cutting the ropes and opening the doors and tying them back.
For every trap with a float, it’s just a matter of time until the rope frays from UV and breaks, or is cut by a boat prop. Then, the traps become perpetual killing machines, for NOTHING.
I guess I’m in an extremely cynical mood today. I read the article not so much as “We’re worried about killing the lobsters” as “We’re not happy that the lobsters died and we didn’t get a chance to eat them”
I’ve done alot of crabbing and salmon fishing and one thing I know is that if something dies in the water, it DOES NOT go to waste!
That’s what all the herring and flounders and crabs and octopuses depend on!
I believe you.
They do go to waste inside of a perpetual trap though, that’s the point. Stuff gets in, it doesn’t get out to do its thing elsewhere. It dead-ends in the trap. Unless philosophically, you are saying that little microbes will decay them and their atoms will float out eventually.
Not just microbes. Even giant blue finned tuna start out in a tiny larval stage. You know what I mean.
I agree in general it’s not a good thing. Hell, I’ve seen white-tailed deer get their legs all snagged up in barbed wire fences and had to cut them lose.
But I’m not going to suggest they stop using barbed wire. And like I said, I have crab pots in my shed right now, and to use them you have to tie the escape holes shut.
We have the technology. It’s just convincing people to use it. If they chose not to use it and their catch declines, well, ain’t my fault.
It seems to me that making the ‘hinges’ out of carbon steel would take care of this problem. They wouldn’t last very long down there.
Dipping the entire trap in tar tends to negate that strategy.
First generation Maine lobster pots used to be made of lath with a curved top. Supposedly to allow the pot to roll with the strong currents. Second generation pots are more *square,* and more easily stacked.
When a lobster enters through the net “head” to go after the bait in a bait bag placed in the “kitchen”. When it tries to exit it lands in the “bedroom” or “parlor”. Some traps have more than one kitchen and bedroom. Traps are required to have an escape vent that is large enough to let all but the legal size lobsters escape. Traps also are equipped with runners that help prevent legs, claws and antennae from being pinched between the bottom of the trap and the boat when the traps are hauled. Most areas also require traps to have a biodegradable "ghost panel". This panel will eventually degrade and release, allowing a large space for lobsters to escape from "ghost traps" (those that have broken free of their buoy lines and are therefore unretrieveable).
I smell another crisis.
so far the farmers of kalifornia, now the fishermen.
This is divide and conquer at it’s best!
We need to help all of these folks fight thier fight.
I am very upset by the thought of the lobsters being wasted, killed for nothing. Very sad.
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