Local Watermen Help Give the Chesapeake Bay a Cleaner Future
A Chesapeake Bay cleanup is bringing local watermen together to remove abandoned crab pots and protect marine life.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has directed $225,000 in its latest round of funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to two projects in Herring Bay and Eastern Bay. The Oyster Recovery Partnership and Raunch Inc. will work with watermen to find and retrieve the lost gear, drawing on their experience on the water.
Abandoned pots, often called ghost traps, can continue catching animals long after they are no longer being used. Removing them gives marine life a better chance and helps clear hazards from the water and surrounding habitats. The work is especially meaningful in the Chesapeake Bay, which supplies one-third of the nation’s blue crabs.
The new projects build on substantial progress. Over the past two years, the institute’s Fishing Trap, Removal, Assessment and Prevention program has recovered more than 24,000 abandoned traps weighing a combined 600,000 pounds. That effort has supported more than 135 jobs and documented nearly 36,000 trapped marine animals. An earlier institute-led effort removed roughly 34,000 ghost traps between 2008 and 2014.
Community cleanups are making a difference beyond the bay, too. Since 2019, Ocean Aid 360 has held annual ghost-trap rodeos that invite people to collect abandoned gear from Gulf waters. Anglers, boaters, paddlers and shoreline walkers have all been welcome to take part. Across 18 Florida cleanups, the organization reports collecting close to 150,000 pounds of marine debris.
Each recovered trap is one less danger in the water—and another step toward healthier waterways for wildlife and the people who depend on them.
