Cleaning up the tens of thousands of crab traps abandoned each year is expensive and time consuming. Coastal resource managers in Texas were overwhelmed by the problem, until they created a volunteer program to clean up derelict traps. The resulting effort was so effective, it is inspiring other Gulf states to tackle the issue.
"It was a huge success," says Art Morris of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Coastal Fisheries Division's first crab trap clean up program. "What stemmed from this is that all the other Gulf states are creating some type of crab trap removal program," and Texas is making it an annual event.
The Texas Crab Trap Removal Program prohibited crabbing with traps in state waters for the first time beginning February 16 and going through March 3, 2002. During this time, a total of 8,070 abandoned crab traps were hauled out by 554 volunteers in 228 vessels.
"We estimate that our cleanup saved 11,000 organisms," exclaims Morris, fishery outreach specialist. "That's a lot of the reasoning behind creating this program."
In addition to killing blue crabs and more than 20 other species, abandoned or lost crab traps are unsightly, create conflicts between recreational and commercial fishermen, and may damage sensitive habitat, such as seagrass. Until 2001, the law in Texas stipulated that only a trap's owner or state game wardens could remove the wire mesh cages used to catch crabs.
Texas Parks and Wildlife estimates that 30,000 traps are lost or discarded in state coastal waters each year. In the past, wardens have only been able to collect about 2,500 traps annually. "We were hand tied to address the magnitude of the problem on a coastwide basis," Morris explains.
Sport fishermen, whose motors are often snagged by the traps, took the issue to the state legislature in 2001, which voted to allow Parks and Wildlife to close crab fishing for up to 30 days in February or March, and authorized the use of volunteers to remove traps after the first 7 days of the closure.
Parks and Wildlife worked with the Crab Advisory Committee, a group that includes commercial crab and sport fishermen, to work out the details of the cleanup. The committee proposed a 16-day closure that allowed two weekends for cleanup during the slowest harvest time.
After public hearings on the proposal, final approval came November 7, 2001, giving Parks and Wildlife staff only three months to pull the event together. "We really got after it immediately," Morris says. "We had to seek volunteer support, donor support, advertise the event, alert the fishermen, find disposal facilities, arrange for 24 collection sites, and find the traps and point them out to the volunteers."
Nearly 60 organizations supported the project through donations and volunteers, and the Coastal Conservation Association provided a $14,000 grant for the program, Morris says. "Ultimately, it worked out very well for us."
So well that the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission is developing guidelines for other states to create similar crab trap removal programs.
"There's been a lot of interest in this program," notes Morris. "It exceeded everyone's expectations."
For more information on the Texas Crab Trap Removal Program, contact Art Morris at (361) 825-3356, or Art.Morris@tpwd.state.tx.us. To read the guidelines that will be published by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, point your browser to www.gsmfc.org.
