GGGI Signature Project - Pacific Northwest
Project Background
The Pacific Northwest region of Washington State and British Columbia is an area of incredible biodiversity and, as a result, significant fishing activity, particularly for Dungeness crab and various salmon species. There has been significant work done in the region previously by several GGGI members, including the Northwest Straits Foundation (NWSF) and Natural Resources Consultants (NRC) in Washington State and the Emerald Sea Protection Society (ESPS) in British Columbia. Part of this work by NWSF and NRC includes the creation of the Puget Sound Crab Pot Prevention Plan and the Reporting, Response, and Retrieval (RRR) Program for newly lost nets, a program being conducted in coordination with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The GGGI is working with NWSF, NRC and ESPS to continue working in this region, focusing on side scan surveys and gear removals from sensitive habitats, data collection, capacity building workshops, outreach and education.
Project Summary
(2024)
Furthering our ongoing efforts in the Pacific Northwest, we continued to work with the Emerald Sea Protection Society (ESPS), conducting additional ALDFG removal work in Alert Bay, British Columbia. Building on the work that ESPS accomplished in Port McNeill in 2023, ESPS worked with local fishers from the Namgis First Nation to identify areas of known gear loss and to remove as much gear as possible. A local fishing vessel that was used for recovery operations was equipped with hydraulic equipment and a boom, which brought the gear out of the water. In total, 14,650 kg was removed, sorted, packaged for disposal, and transported to the Port McNeill Harbour Authority where it was picked up and sent to the nearby 7-Mile Landfill and Recycling Centre. ESPS’s survey work during this project identified that an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 kg of gear remain in the bay. Clearly there is much more to do. A short documentary film “Untangling an Ocean,” can be viewed below.
In Port Gardner, Washington, the Northwest Straits Foundation (NWSF) worked to locate and remove derelict Dungeness crab pots lost in the 2023 fishing season, document compliance with escape cord regulations, and assess the reasons for pot loss. GGGI and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) provided funding to NWSF for derelict crab pot survey and removal operations, with NRC managing the overall project. Removal operations were coordinated with the WDFW, Snohomish County, tribal governments, NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USGC). The project consisted of two days of side-scan sonar surveys followed by three days of dive removal operations conducted in the commonly fished area immediately west of Jetty Island in Port Gardner. A total 237 crab pots were removed, 25% of which were commercial pots and 75% of which were recreational. More than 130 Dungeness crabs were found in the traps that were removed, with about half of the crabs dead Those crabs that were alive were released back into the wild. All removed gear was stored in a locked secure-waste container in the Port of Everett until the pots either were returned to their owners, transferred to a secure location, or transferred to a local waste/recycling facility.
In Sinclair Inlet, located in central Puget Sound, Washington, NRC focused on identifying and removing ALDFG in an area where gear recovery has occurred sporadically during years of intensive removal efforts from 2009-2016. The primary goal of the project was to identify and remove all ALDFG items in the Sinclair Inlet area, including the removal and documentation of concentrations of lost recreational fishing gear around local public fishing piers. With Sinclair Inlet lying within the Usual and Accustomed (U&A) fishing grounds of the Suquamish Tribe, and with the inlet also being the home to the Kitsap U.S. Navy Base, both the Tribe and the Navy base provided data as to where ALDFG was likely to be found in the area. Once targets had been identified via these conversations and via side-scan sonar surveys, NRC and project partners carried out six days of removal operations, during which about 4 km2 of nets (gillnets and purse seine nets) and some additional recreational gear were found and removed. Found in the gear were 138 animals — fish, birds, and invertebrates — 98 of which were dead. All recovered gear (weighing 736 kg) was disposed of at Skagit River Steel and Recycling in Burlington, Washington.
Finally, NRC compiled a draft report focused on the amount, causes, and impacts of lost recreational fishing gear in the marine waters of Washington State to inform local prevention actions and the global understanding of the issue. Lost recreational fishing gear has a significant impact on the final version of this report, set to be completed in 2025, which will integrate results from planned surveys of recreational fishers and will include estimates of amount of gear lost as well as refined recommendations for prevention, mitigation, and remediation of ALDFG in the region.
Project Summary
(2023)
In 2023, we partnered with Natural Resources Consultants (NRC) to convene crab fishery and vessel traffic stakeholders at two workshops to review progress and update the Puget Sound Lost Crab Pot Prevention Plan, which was originally developed in 2016. The process included assembling a project advisory committee representing tribes, Washington state managers, commercial crabbers, recreational crabbers, and vessel traffic interests to help design the planning workshops. The workshops included similar stakeholders involved with the initial development of the Puget Sound Lost Crab Pot Prevention Plan – including many of the same people – and offered several insights into how to update it and improve it moving forward. The result was a revised Puget Sound Crab Pot Prevention Plan including recommended actions needed, approximate costs, and identifying key players responsible for implementing these actions.
For the first time, NRC convened a working group of vessel traffic interests including representatives from private interests (Dunlop Towing, etc.), the Washington ferry system (Washington Department of Transportation), the US Coast Guard, and the crabbing industry (Puget Sound Crab Association, treaty tribes, Puget Sound Anglers). The aim of the workshop was to initiate and evaluate communications and other strategies to minimize vessel conflicts in the Dungeness crab fishery and preventing associated gear loss.
NRC also completed a feasibility study exploring how best to implement mandatory point of sale education for recreational crabbers, as many of the lost crab pots found in Puget Sound originate from the recreational Dungeness crab fishery. The study examined the possibility of providing kiosks with training and educational pieces at retail stores where licenses are sold, such as those available in British Columbia and Oregon. The study also investigated several options, including 1) updating the existing Recreational Crabber Knowledge Quiz; 2) updating the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) WILD online licensing system to include direct link to crabbing regulations and best practices and the Recreational Crabber Knowledge Quiz; 3) Updating the WDFW Fish Washington app to include shellfish regulations and best practices and Recreational Crabber Knowledge Quiz; 4) Including shellfish regulations and best fishing practices and Recreational Crabber Knowledge Quiz in the roll-out of the electronic Catch Record Card (eCRC) app, which is anticipated to launch in 2025; and 5) Phasing in the Recreational Crabber Knowledge Quiz at third-party vendor locations where licenses are sold in-person The study provided approximate costs for implementing each option and examples of locations where similar systems are already in place and working well.
NRC met individually with Puget Sound treaty tribe fisheries personnel to build awareness about the existing Newly Lost Nets Reporting, Response, and Retrieval (RRR) Program and encouraged more collaboration with the program. These meetings with tribal personnel included distribution of information and gathering of feedback about how to increase participation in the RRR program. NRC also met with personnel from local ports, the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Coast Guard, and whale watching industry representatives to build more awareness about the program and encourage greater reporting of any nets encountered during on the water activities.
In February and March 2023, as part of a GGGI Small Grant, an Emerald Sea Protection Society (ESPS) crew completed ghost gear surveys and recovery activities in the region of Port McNeill, British Columbia. The crew concentrated its survey and recovery effort on Alert Bay near Port McNeill. Throughout the areas surveyed in Alert Bay, the crew did not observe a wide distribution of gear but did observe a higher density of gear at a few different locations. An estimated 10,494 pounds of ALDFG was recovered by the crew. The gear that was suitable for recycling was sent to the Ocean Legacy Foundation recycling center in Steveston Harbour, British Columbia and the remainder of the recovered gear, which was too heavily contaminated to recycle, was sent to a local landfill for disposal. Inclement weather conditions and strong currents had significantly limited the crew’s capacity to safely survey and recover ALDFG. During its activities, the crew observed that the eelgrass was flourishing in Alert Bay, and they believe that with a more extensive cleanup effort, the seabed habitat would not take long to recover. In 2024, ESPS will return to the area to complete the cleanup with an additional ~20 dive days, helping to restore this critical habitat to its natural state.
(2022)
Building on this previous work, the GGGI and NRC focused on preventing negative impacts from ALDFG in the Washington Salish Sea (WASS) by evaluating the existing RRR program and comparing the areas of lost nets to habitats of species listed under the U.S. federal Endangered Species Act; conducting interviews with tribal fishers to better determine key reasons for gear loss, using the UN FAO survey methodology; and removing existing derelict Dungeness crab pots from marine habitats in areas where crab pots are regularly lost during fishing operations. Overall, the response and retrieval portions of the RRR program were found to be working well. However, significantly more newly lost nets were found than were reported lost, showing that there is room for improvement in motivating accurate gear loss reporting in the program.
The side-scan survey, remotely operated vehicle (ROV) verification and gear removal portions of the project—carried out by NRC and Fenn Enterprises in the Port Gardner area near Everett, WA—were aimed at eliminating damage, caused by the loss of deep water crab pots, to marine habitats that are critical to the recovery of rockfish in the WASS. Once identified, pots were removed with the assistance of the ROV, either by attaching the ROV’s manipulator arm to the target pot directly and with the pot being pulled to the surface via the ROV umbilical cord, or by using the ROV arm to attach a grapple to the target pot and then hauling the pot up onto a vessel via a winch. Overall arising from 19 linear (km) of side scan sonar surveys, 73 derelict crab pots were identified with side-scan sonar and investigated, with 37 removed, 31 disabled but left in place, and the remaining five not found.
In 2023, we plan to expand on this activity by building capacity amongst fisheries managers and stakeholders to prevent pot loss, assessing the feasibility of requiring all online recreational crab licenses purchased with point-of-sale education on loss prevention, and building capacity amongst tribes and agencies to report and respond to lost gillnets. Additionally, we will expand our work north of the Canada/U.S. border into British Columbia with some gear removal from ESPS in Double Bay in the inside passage between Vancouver Island and the mainland, which is a critical orca habitat.
(2021)
Beginning in late 2021, and building on the significant survey and removal work already done in the Pacific Northwest in Washington State, U.S.A., the focus of this project is to document and understand the nexus between derelict fishing nets (mostly gillnets), protected species and their habitat (including Bocaccio rockfish, Yelloweye rockfish, Chinook salmon, Hood Canal Summer shum salmon, and Green sturgeon), and essential fish habitats in the Washington Salish Sea (WASS). Fisher surveys from tribal and non-tribal fishers will also be performed to assess the causes and frequency of gear loss in the WASS. Based on this information, a series of side-scan sonar surveys and derelict gear removals will be conducted with a focus on deep water critically sensitive habitats for rockfish specifically. Additionally, an analysis will be performed about the effectiveness of the Reporting, Response, and Retrieval (RRR) program for newly lost nets, which was developed by the Northwest Straits Foundation to prevent harm from lost fishing nets.
The survey work began in late 2021 with the remaining objectives to be carried out in the first half of 2022.
Project partners
Funders
Anonymous Retired Bremerton, WA Resident
