5 days ago
Ropeless fishing gear for catching crabs shows positive results
Ropeless fishing gear is proving effective at avoiding whale entanglements without sacrificing yields for commercial fishermen harvesting Dungeness crabs, according to research findings released by the State of California, nonprofit groups and and industry partners.
In a third consecutive year of state-sponsored trials where Northern California fishermen used what is often called 'pop-up gear,' researchers found that 12 boats landed more than 217,000 pounds of Dungeness crab with an estimated value of about $1.4 million, or 18,100 pounds per vessel. Each boat made an average 12 fishing trips along a roughly 130-mile coastal region otherwise closed to Dungeness crab fishing due to risk of whale entanglements, according to researchers.
'The results of this spring's pop-up gear testing are nothing less than wildly successful. Even with a vast increase in the amount of gear each fisherman was allowed to use, not a single string of fishing gear was lost,' said Geoff Shester, a senior scientist and campaign director with Oceana California, in a news release.
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Pop-up gear relies on acoustic signals from fishing vessels to trigger the release of ocean-bottom buoys tethered to crab pots rather than use 'vertical ropes' associated with traditional fishing methods. Vertical lines are known to entangle whales that swim through areas with high concentrations of fishing boats. A line or lines can become wrapped around a whale's tail and fins, break from its buoy and eventually become embedded in whale's flesh, leading to sickness and death.
