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 think 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 think 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.
The study 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 percent 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.
