The ghost trap problem in Biscayne Bay

July 4, 2016 South Atlantic

04GHOST%20TRAPS_CPJ Beneath the glittering surface of Biscayne Bay, a menace lurks, wiping out fragile sea grass habitat, catching and killing as brutally, efficiently and indiscriminately as any monster from the deep: ghost traps. What goes inside the abandoned or lost traps stays inside — crabs left to cannibalize each other, baby lobster and fish too disoriented to escape. Heavy-grade plastic crab traps can even outlive their owners. “Just because someone’s not actually fishing a trap, it doesn’t mean the trap isn’t fishing,” said John Ricisak, a Miami-Dade County environmental resources project supervisor who heads county removal efforts. Ghost traps are so ubiquitous it’s hard to know how many exist. A 2013 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated more than 1.1 million ghost and derelict traps litter the Florida Keys. Read the rest here 19:29

Biscayne Bay, Ghost traps

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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