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.
Read more about this gear at:
by Todd Steiner
