Ropeless Gear | Turtle Island Restoration Network

Prioritize North Atlantic Right Whales Over Profit

Laurel Irvine — Sun, 25 May 2025 02:58:38 +0000

North Atlantic right whales are on the brink of extinction. Fewer than 370 remain, including just 70 breeding females. In recent years, numerous right whales have been killed or severely injured as a result of entanglement events and vessel strikes.

Now, the Trump Administration is considering rolling back the very federal protections that help prevent deadly vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements, the leading causes of mortality, in favor of bolstering profits from maritime industries.

Current vessel speed and commercial fishery regulations protect right whale and benefit other vulnerable species in the Atlantic Ocean, including humpback and minke whales, leatherback sea turtles, fin whales and loggerhead sea turtles.

Without these protections, right whales could be functionally extinct within a decade. North Atlantic right whales need your voice.

Take action today and tell the Trump Administration to prioritize whales over maritime industry profits.

Use Your Voice to Protect Whales Over Profit

Lawsuit to Protect Leatherbacks Advances

Todd Steiner — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:35:59 +0000

By Todd Steiner

When the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) allowed the sablefish fishery to expand into designated critical habitat for leatherback sea turtles, Turtle Island and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) went into action and filed a federal lawsuit challenging the opening of nearly 2,000 square miles of leatherback sea turtle critical habitat to sablefish pot fishing.

The legal action, filed August 14, 2024 challenges the unlawful issuance of a regulation to allow sablefish pot fishing in nearshore waters off the West Coast that threaten this critically endangered species. The motion seeks summary judgment on their Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and asks the Judge to vacate the sablefish pot fishery Reopening Rule.

The West Coast pot fishery for the bottom-dwelling sablefish — also known as butterfish or black cod — strings 15 to 50 fish pots on the seafloor to a surface buoy. Leatherbacks and whales can get tangled in the lines that attached the pots to the buoys leading to serious injury and death. The new rule expanded fishing in new areas including crucial feeding areas off California’s central coast in the Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.

A simple solution to this problem could be accomplished with a new regulation requiring to convert to new ropeless or “pop-up” fishing gear, see https://seaturtles.org/ropeless-gear-can-help-save-the-lives-of-whales-and-sea-turtles/. The groups are asking the court to vacate the sablefish pot fishery Reopening Rule.

Turtle Island and CBD now await the decision of Federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín.

Read the summary judgement here: https://seaturtles.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/46-Pls-MSJ-2024-08-14.pdf

Learn more about the lawsuit and sablefish pot fishery threat to leatherbacks here: https://seaturtles.org/lawsuit-aims-to-protect-pacific-sea-turtles-from-fishing-gear/

Ropeless Gear Can Help Save the Lives of Whales and Sea Turtles

Todd Steiner — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 20:11:20 +0000

Traditional pot fishery gear used for catching lobsters, crabs and some finfish like sablefish, consists of a baited trap set on the bottom floor with a long rope connected to a floating surface buoy allowing fishers to find and their retrieve their traps. Depending on the fishery, the traps may be left on the bottom for several days before being checked, or worse, the traps are lost and are never retrieved.

There are literally millions of traps with their buoy lines in US waters, and they create a major threat to sea turtles and whales which can become entangled in the ropes and suffer serious injury or death.

Ropeless gear, also called on-demand gear, can eliminate the threat of entanglement and save the lives of thousands of sea turtles and whales.

Here is how it works.

Pop-Up Buoy– The buoy and line are attached to the trap on the bottom, but are released on a signal sent from the boat to the gear, releasing the buoy to float to the surface and be immediately retrieved by the fisher.

Inflatable Lift Bag—A deflated lift bag is attached to the traps on the bottom that inflates from a signal sent from the boat filling the bag and lifting the trap to the surface for retrieval.

Turtle Island is promoting new regulations to require ropeless gear, while promoting less fishing effort to protect all marine wildlife. Once this is widely adopted in the US, we can promote its use internationally.

Fishery’s Expansion Threatens Endangered Leatherbacks Off California

TIRNADMIN — Fri, 17 May 2024 18:48:22 +0000

In an inexplicable move, the National Marine Fisheries Service has allowed a little known fishery that targets bottom-dwelling sablefish — also known as black cod or butterfish to expand into federally designated critical habitat for critically endangered Pacific leatherback turtles.

The West Coast sablefish pot fishery places its fish trap pots placed on the bottom of the ocean attached by a rope to a floating buoys on the surface. Thirty to 50 pots are then strung together on two-mile long ropes for ease of retrieval by fishers. When a turtle or whale come into contact with the lines it can wrap around sea turtles’ necks or front flippers, anchoring them to the heavy pots on seafloor resulting horrible deaths and injury.

The new fishery expansion allows this deadly gear into crucial feeding areas for leatherbacks previously designated as a leatherback conservation areas off Oregon and California that have been closed to net driftnet fishing since the early 2000s. Nearly 2,000 square miles of the newly opened areas are also in leatherback sea turtle critical habitat, including within Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.

The result, leatherbacks are experiencing horrible deaths or being seriously injured when they get entangled in pot traps.
This must stop immediately. With only a couple of thousand adult leatherbacks left in the Pacific, every single leatherback is critical to the survival of the species. Turtle Island joined the Center for Biological Diversity and filed suit to protect leatherback turtles from entanglement in this fishery Legal Petition.

In addition to calling for a reduction in the amount of traps placed in the ocean, Turtle Island is calling for alternative gear be required that lessen the impact of this fishery.
Known as “ropeless pop-up gear,” the vertical lines can be eliminated, and with the click of a button, a buoy attached to the trap can be released and float to the surface to allow for immediate retrieval by fishers.

This new technology can save the lives of whales and turtles in many pot fisheries including lobster, crab and fish pot fisheries throughout the US. Unfortunately, fishers are reluctant to switch gears.

Turtle Island is actively working to promote this new technology on the East and West Coast of the US.

Figure 1. Leatherback sea turtle critical habitat in California consists of Area 1 in orange, the principal feeding area, and Area 7 in yellow, the secondary feeding area. The cross-hatch indicates conservation areas Fisheries Service recently reopened to sablefish pot fishing. Map by K. Clauser/Center for Biological Diversity.

Programs: Oceans