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The Innerspace Exploration Team is engaging the local community of Port Townsend, Washington, in identification and removal of derelict crab pots from Discovery and Sequim Bays.
Type of Project: Removal
Region: Pacific Northwest
Project Dates: September 2022 - August 2024
Who is involved?
The Innerspace Exploration Team, in partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris Program, Clallam and Jefferson County Marine Resources Committees, the Fiero Marine Science Center, and the S’Klallam Jamestown Tribe is surveying both Discovery and Sequim Bays using sidescan sonar to detect derelict crab traps that may be present. Once located, team members and divers are returning to remove all of the traps by hand.
What is the project and why is it important?
Derelict crab traps, also known as pots, can have a negative impact on the population of Dungeness crabs in the Puget Sound, Washington, through the process of ghost fishing. Ghost fishing occurs when a piece of fishing gear, in this case a crab pot, continues to trap crabs when it is no longer being tended by a fisher. Those trapped crabs cannot escape and are subject to mortality as a result.
The Innerspace Exploration Team will reduce mortality of Dungeness crab through the detection and removal of derelict crab pots from Discovery and Sequim Bays, as well as document the success of recycling recovered pots. Derelict crab traps will be identified and located using sidescan sonar equipment mounted on the bottom of the Innerspace Exploration Team’s boat. The sonar emits high frequency sound waves downward into the water and creates an image of the ocean floor by measuring the variations in return time when the sound bounces off the ocean floor, or objects on the ocean floor like crab traps, and returns to the equipment.
The Clallam and Jefferson County Marine Resources Committees, the Fiero Marine Science Center, and the S’Klallam Jamestown Tribe are helping to support these efforts through community education and establishing lasting educational forums from data collected as part of this project. Both Discovery and Sequim Bays have not had any crab pot removal actions in many years. The removal of these crab pots will prevent an estimated killing of up to 9,322 harvestable Dungeness crab per year with the prevention of an estimated commercial loss value of up to $186,400 annually.