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Small World for Maine's Ghost Lobster Traps

April 29, 2009 - VINALHAVEN -- The ocean doesn't look so big to David Osgood these days.

The Vinalhaven lobsterman got a call last winter after someone found one of his lobster buoys on a beach in Cornwall – on the southwest coast of England. And it wasn't the first time one of his buoys took an international voyage.

"Believe it or not, another guy from Vinalhaven was vacationing down in Bermuda, and he found one of mine there, too," said Osgood, whose state registration number is branded into each small red device.

Strange luck, maybe. But Osgood doesn't like losing gear any more than the thousands of other Maine lobstermen like it when they have to replace buoys and the derelict traps that are left behind on the ocean floor.

"Nobody wants to lose any," he said, "but it's just the way it is in our business."

That costly fact of life for lobstermen could soon lead to an unusual cleanup project.

The State Planning Office has applied for a $2.3 million grant through an ocean restoration program financed by the federal stimulus package. If the grant is obtained – and there is lots of competition – the agency plans to hire lobstermen to search for and recover lost traps and other fishing gear along the coast.

That would provide jobs now and would address a long-term threat to both the industry and the ocean, said Theresa Torrent-Ellis, the agency's senior planner.

"We really don't understand the full impact, but the truth is the impact is building," she said.

An estimated 160,000 or more Maine traps go missing each year after tidal currents, storms or passing boat propellers separate them from the brightly colored buoys that mark their locations. Each one, by the way, costs its owner at least $60 to replace.

While the buoys tend to wash up on beaches, and eventually break down into smaller pieces, the traps stay put, sometimes getting tangled up in large masses. There could be more than 1 million of the vinyl-coated steel devices on the ocean floor along Maine's coast.

Concern about the damage that gear might be doing to habitats and to lobster populations has been building for years. The traps, often called ghost traps, can keep catching lobsters as long as they remain intact. When one trapped lobster dies, it becomes bait for more.

"There can actually be quite a high impact in the fishery," said Torrent-Ellis, who has been trying to find money for a cleanup for at least two years. "This is definitely about helping our fishery and keeping it sustainable over time."

Torrent-Ellis hopes to learn just after May 1 whether the money will come through. For now, she and other state officials are taking names from lobstermen who want one of as many as 420 potential jobs grappling for old traps and other gear.

And if the answer is no on the grant, Torrent-Ellis will keep looking, she said. The traps aren't going anywhere.

Osgood has not signed up for any of the cleanup jobs. He is more focused on fishing, and hoping not to lose his buoys and traps.

It's hard to say when Osgood's ocean-crossing buoy parted ways with the trap that was attached to it, or how long it took to reach England. Osgood said he has been using red buoys for decades, and they go missing all the time. "That styrofoam will last forever," he said.

It could have been a long trip. A plastic registration tag from one Maine lobster trap was recently found in Cornwall eight years after it was lost off the coast of Jonesport.

It's also hard to say exactly where Osgood's lost traps are now. But the ocean's not such a big place, after all, and it probably has plenty of company.

JOHN RICHARDSON April 25, 2009, Portland Press Herald


Lakes:
Regions: Sebago, Sanford, Calais, Mid Coast, Downeast


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