Tag Archives: Northwest Straits Foundation

Ghost-net busters are entering a new era of hunting and removal

My mind is unable to grasp, in any meaningful way, how much death and destruction was caused by fishing nets that were lost and abandoned through the years.

Filmed in 2007, this KCTS-9 video describes the problem of ghost nets and a project that would eventually remove nearly 6,000 nets.

Nearly 6,000 of these so-called “ghost nets” have been pulled from the waters of Puget Sound over the past 17 years. Until removed, they keep on catching fish, crabs and many more animals to one degree or another.

We can support responsible fishing, but those of us who care about Puget Sound must never again allow lost nets to be forgotten, as if “out of sight, out of mind” ever worked for anyone.

The latest concern, as I reported last month in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound, is that 200 or more ghost nets are still lurking at depths below 100 feet, which is the level considered safe to operate by divers with normal scuba gear. Remotely operated vehicles (unmanned submarines) are being developed to go after nets remaining in deep water, where they are killing crabs and many other deep-water species — including rockfish, some of which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

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The proper use of crab pots means extra crabs for the dinner plate

“Catch more crab!”

This is a campaign slogan going out to Puget Sound crabbers. It is a positive message, built upon the goals of:

  • Helping people avoid losing their crab pots,
  • Reducing the number of crabs that go to waste, and
  • Increasing the number of crabs available for harvest.

Crab

We’ve talked about the problems of lost crab pots that keep on catching crabs on the bottom of Puget Sound. About 12,000 crab pots are lost each year in Puget Sound, killing an estimated 178,000 legal-sized Dungeness crabs that would otherwise be served up for dinner. In January, I described some simple alterations to crab pots that allow crabs to escape when a pot gets lost. See Water Ways, Jan. 28.

Even more basic, however, are proven techniques that help people select equipment and place their crab pots so they don’t get damaged or lost in the first place.

The Northwest Straits Initiative, authorized by Congress in 1998, has been working on the problem of derelict gear for years, including the retrieval of thousands of lost nets and crab pots from Puget Sound. When it came to enlisting the public’s help in prevention, campaign organizers realized that everyone was on the same side, said Jason Morgan of the nonprofit Northwest Straits Foundation.

Crab2

“We previously focused on the doom and gloom of it, talking about so many crabs killed each year,” Jason told me.

Working with sociologists, campaign organizers realized that “the better way to reach people is not to talk about dead crabs but to say we want you to catch more crabs and keep your crab pots.”

The Northwest Straits Foundation has developed a three-year plan of action, including education for the public; improved communication among crabbers, vessel operators and government officials; and recommendations for improving regulations.

The plan was put together by a working group of 35 people involved in various aspects of crab harvesting, boat traffic and resource protection.

“It was a great collaborative process,” Jason said. “There was no butting of heads or anything like that.”

The “Puget Sound Lost Crab Pot Prevention Plan” (PDF 996 kb) states:

“Crab pots are lost for a variety of reasons. Causes for loss generally fall into three categories:

  • Vessel interaction (both recreational and commercial vessels);
  • Improperly configured gear, including improperly tied knots; and
  • Improperly placed gear.

“All these categories usually include a degree of user error, either on the part of the crabber, or on the part of the boater or vessel operator.”

The plan includes at least 25 strategies for reducing conflicts between vessel traffic and crab pots, reducing tampering and sabotage, improving crabbing equipment and pot configuration, and removing abandoned crab pots during non-crabbing days.

One of the interesting ideas is to require online registration for recreational crab endorsements on fishing licenses. Applicants would take a short quiz to make sure they know the rules.

Rich Childers, shellfish manager for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the various regulatory proposals in the plan are under advisement. One idea, which has proven effective, is to reduce the size of allowable escape cord (“rot cord”) that opens an escape hatch for the crabs to get out. Studies have shown that approved escape cord takes between 30 and 148 days to disintegrate, and most people use larger cord to last longer.

The time that crabs are trapped and dying on the bottom could be reduced if the rules were changed to require smaller cord. Any rule changes would include a grace period, Childers said, and it would be nice if crabbers could obtain the smaller cord for free.

With crab season underway, a series of videos on the theme “Catch more crab!” couldn’t come at a better time:

A longer video shows how to modify a crab pot to make sure that crabs can escape when a crab pot is lost:

“Modify your crab pot: adding bungee cord & modifying escape ring”

The video below provides basic information for first-time crabbers. Meanwhile, outdoors writer Mark Yuasa offered a nice instructional story last week in the Seattle Times.

To check on crab seasons and legal requirements, visits the Recreational Crab Fishing webpage of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

How to help crabs survive when you
lose a crab pot

A simple alteration to recreational crab pots could save thousands of crabs from going to waste each year, all because crabs are unable to escape from lost crab pots that keep on working, according to a new study.

Paul Rudell of Natural Resources Consultants, left, and Jason Morgan of Northwest Straits Foundation place crabs into a trap to test the escape system. Photo: Northwest Straits Foundation
Paul Rudell of Natural Resources Consultants, left, and Jason Morgan of Northwest Straits Foundation place crabs into a trap to test the escape system.
Photo: Northwest Straits Foundation

The Crab Pot Escapement Study, commissioned by the Northwest Straits Foundation, is the first to measure how well crabs use the escape routes provided in the design of every crab pot sold in Washington state.

The findings were somewhat of a surprise, according to Jason Morgan of the Northwest Straits Foundation. Jason told me that he is eager to get the information out to recreational crabbers, who could voluntarily take steps to reduce crab mortality. The findings might even lead to revised regulations for crab pots.

Of course, the best thing that crabbers can do is to avoid losing their pots in the first place. For tips, check out the brochure from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (PDF 2.9 mb) or the Northwest Straits website. About 12,000 crab pots are lost each year in Puget Sound, representing the wasteful deaths of nearly 200,000 crabs, according to a revised estimate derived from the new study.

The study, in partnership with Natural Resources Consultants, placed live Dungeness crabs into six common types of crab pots, using 13 various configurations. After the seventh day, the biodegradable escape cord (“rot cord”) was severed to provide an opening through which the crabs could escape — at least in theory. The researchers then measured the time it took for the crabs to get out, if they could.

An escape ring tied with escape cord allows crabs a way out. Photo: Northwest Straits Foundation
An escape ring tied with escape cord allows crabs a safe exit.
Photo: Northwest Straits Foundation

One thing the researchers learned was that crab pots with hinged doors tended to keep the crabs trapped, especially when the door was located away from the edge of the pot. The doors simply stayed closed after the escape cord broke free.

A modification of the doors with a bungee cord significantly increased the number of crabs that could escape. The doors were modified to spring open when the escape cord broke.

The best configuration of all involved the use of escape rings — a circular opening at least 4.25 inches across. These rings are required by law in all crab pots to allow females and under-sized males to get away before the pot is brought to the surface or in the event that it becomes derelict.

Many crab pots sold today tie the rings into the crab pot with escape cord. When the cord breaks, the ring falls away to provide a larger opening for the crabs to get out.

“It’s still a small opening for the crab to crawl out,” Jason said. “We did not expect it to be effective at all, but it works very well.”

In some crab pots, the required rings are welded into place on the iron cage. It would be easy enough for people to cut the rings out with a strong pair of wire cutters and then tie them back in with escape cord, Jason said.

Manufacturers of crab pots have become interested in the study, Jason told me, and he expects some will quickly convert to tying the rings in place rather than welding them. The difference in cost, if any, should be small, he said, and drawbacks seem minimal.

Requiring this method of escape for future crab pots sold in Washington could be another result of the study, but nothing is proposed at this time, Jason said. The next round of studies is likely to look at commercial crab pots, which are generally larger but still require an escape route in case they become lost.

A related issue that needs attention is the escape cord, which is made of cotton and designed to deteriorate in a reasonable period of time when left in saltwater. Cords that last longer are likely to cause more crabs to die. Studies have shown that approved escape cord takes between 30 and 148 days to disintegrate, with most people selecting larger cord that can last toward the longer end of that range.

“That is certainly something that we are not happy with,” Jason said. “We would like to see regulations that would require escape cord to be smaller.”

A smaller cord would break sooner and allow more crabs to survive when a crab pot is lost, though it would require crabbers to change the cord more often. That would seem to be a small inconvenience to avoid the kind of waste often seen in photos of derelict crab pots filled with dead and dying crabs. Even longtime experienced crabbers can lose a pot now and then, Jason said.

Northwest Straits Foundation is working on one or more videos to help people see the benefits of providing escape for crabs and to demonstrate how to modify their crab pots.

According to the study, the right modifications to crab pots could allow 99 percent of the crabs to get free when a crab pot is lost in the depths of Puget Sound.

Long-running effort to remove deadly ghost nets reaches major milestone

More than 466,000 animals — from seals to sea birds to salmon to crabs — were found dead during the retrieval of “ghost nets” over the past 12 years by the Northwest Straits Foundation, which celebrated a major milestone today. In recognizing the end of a significant program, I’d like to add a little personal history.

Photo:Northwest Straits Maritime Commission
Photo: Northwest Straits Commission

The celebration in Everett marks the completion of the intense effort to retrieve nets lost from fishing boats in less than 105 feet of water — because the vast majority of the nets have been removed. Future roundups may be planned if more nets are found or reported by commercial fishers, who are now required to report lost gear.

The removal program has pulled out more than 5,660 derelict fishing nets and more than 3,800 crab and shrimp pots blamed for killing all those marine mammals, birds, fish and other creatures, according to statistics kept by the organization.

Photo: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Photo: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

“Removing these nets restores marine habitat forever.” Joan Drinkwin, interim director of the Northwest Straits Foundation, said in a news release. “Marine mammals like porpoises, diving birds, and fish can now swim and dive in Puget Sound without the risk of being entangled in these dangerous derelict nets.”

Northwest Straits Foundation stepped up and tackled the huge ghost-net-removal project with the first grant from the Washington Legislature in 2002. Through the years, other funding came from the federal government, foundations, fishing groups, tribes, corporations and private individuals. In a separate project, U.S. Navy divers removed derelict nets from selected underwater locations.

“Just about every agency and organization in Puget Sound that works to protect and restore our marine waters has contributed to this effort,” Drinkwin said. “We have many people to thank, so this is a celebration not just of our work, but of collaboration and pulling together to achieve great things.”

I’d like to add some personal notes, giving a bit of early credit to Ray Frederick, who headed up the Kitsap Poggie Club in 2000, when Ray first called my attention to the ghost net problem.

It was right after a state initiative to ban non-Indian gillnets failed at the ballot box, leaving many sport fishermen upset with what they viewed as the indiscriminate killing of fish, including salmon listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Ray called me and said gillnet fishing will continue, but something should be done about the ghost nets. I think that was the first time I had ever heard the term. Here’s how I began the first of many stories (Kitsap Sun, June 30, 1999) I would write about this subject:

“In the murky, undersea twilight of Puget Sound, scuba divers occasionally come face to face with the tangled remains of rotting fish. Nearly invisible in the dim light, long-lost fishing nets continue to ensnare fish, birds, seals, crabs and other creatures that happen along.

“Divers call these hidden traps ‘ghost nets.’

“”It’s a little eerie, seeing fish like that,’ said Steve Fisher, an underwater photographer from Bremerton. ‘You can see that something has been eating on them, and the fish are a pretty good size — bigger than you would normally see.’”

I reported that a few net-retrieval operations had been conducted since 1986, but state officials were warning against any ad hoc operations following the death of a volunteer scuba diver, who became tangled in fishing gear and ran out of air.

Ray got involved in a campaign to seek state and federal funding to eliminate ghost nets. He wrote to Gov. Gary Locke and select legislators. I located one of Ray’s letters, which expressed frustration about the lack of action to remove the derelict gear he knew was killing sea life in Puget Sound.

State Sen, Karen Fraser, D-Lacey, who had been pushing for funding, was joined by then-Rep. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, the late-Sen. Bob Oke, R-Port Orchard, and other legislators to push through funding to develop new guidelines to safely remove derelict gear. The Northwest Straits Commission, which wanted to remove ghost nets in and around the San Juan Islands, was chosen to conduct the study, which led to “Derelict Fishing Gear Removal Guidelines” (PDF 2.3 mb).

Now that most of the nets have been removed in water less than 105 feet deep, the effort must turn to removing nets in deeper water, where they are likely to snare threatened and endangered rockfish species in Puget Sound.

NOAA Fisheries and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have listed abandoned nets as threats to rockfish and recommend action. The most promising method of removal is remotely operated vehicles. A report by Natural Resources Consultants (PDF 1.4 mb) spells out the various options.