{"id":4024,"date":"2014-11-24T14:10:58","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T19:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=4024"},"modified":"2024-08-28T14:38:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T18:38:51","slug":"trapped-partners-tackle-derelict-fishing-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/trapped-partners-tackle-derelict-fishing-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"TRAPPED? Partners Tackle Derelict Fishing Gear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
On a blustery winter day, 27 volunteers gathered at the north end of Roanoke Island and gazed out on an angry Albemarle Sound. They had come, dressed in waders and bundled against the cold weather, to remove marine debris from Fort Raleigh National Site’s<\/a> shoreline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, this was no ordinary coastal cleanup. Armed with shovels and beach carts, their target was the large number of deteriorating crab pots that weighed down marsh grass or lay, half buried, in the sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You have to be prepared to get into the brambles and get into the weeds and wade out in the water to go and bring these in, but it is a lot safer to have them off the beaches,” says Peggy Birkemeier who participated in the effort with her husband, Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pots are a type of marine debris referred to as derelict fishing gear. Lines, pots, nets and other recreational or commercial harvest equipment that have been lost or willfully abandoned or discarded are considered derelict. The volunteers were participants in the first effort by North Carolina Sea Grant<\/a> to identify new programs and policies that will allow for more extensive and cost-efficient removal of derelict fishing gear from coastlines and waterways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the days following the shoreline cleanup, area fishermen used their knowledge of the region, and sonar-imaging techniques, to search for pots as part of a N.C. Coastal Federation<\/a> research project. The effort was funded by Sea Grant as well as by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>, or NOAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe on-water cleanup of derelict crab pots during winter 2014 marked the first time persons other than N.C. Marine Patrol officers were allowed to remove the in-water debris, with commercial crabbers working alongside law enforcement,\u201d says Sara Mirabilio<\/a>, a Sea Grant fisheries specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Carolina General Statute 113-268, an anti-theft law aimed at protecting fishermen, makes it illegal “for any person to willfully steal, destroy or injure any buoys, markers, stakes, nets, pots or other devices lawfully set out in the open water of the State in connection with any fishing or fishery.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until recently, the law has been interpreted to mean that only the person who set it, and the Marine Patrol, could remove fishing gear from waterways. During the 2014 no-potting period, the Marine Patrol agreed to issue a scientific collection and educational permit to the federation that allowed assistance from a select group of commercial fishermen within a narrowly defined geographic area and time frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUNATTENDED POTS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n