Lost Fishing Gear

LOST FISHING GEAR RECOVERY PROJECT

Lost fishing gear is commercial and recreational fishing gear -- nets, traps, pots, line -- that becomes lost or is discarded in the water. The gear ends up sitting on the sea floor, getting caught on rocky reefs, or floating in the water column. The majority of this lost gear does not decompose in seawater and can remain in the marine environment for years.

Lost gear impacts the marine environment in several ways: it can continue to "catch" marine animals, which become entangled or trapped; it can damage the habitat upon which it becomes entangled or upon which it rests; it can pose an underwater hazard for boaters, entangling boat propellers and anchors; and it can similarly endanger humans, especially divers. Lost gear is also a visual blight, diminishing the natural aesthetic quality of the seafloor and rocky reef habitat for underwater enthusiasts.

The SeaDoc Society at the University of California, Davis Wildlife Health Center launched the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project in July 2005 in partnership with the California Ocean Protection Council and State Coastal Conservancy, the Northwest Straits Commission (Mt. Vernon, Washington), and NOAA's Marine Debris Program and Office of Restoration. This project encourages ocean users to report the presence of lost gear, and hires experienced and certified SCUBA divers to remove gear from near-shore waters in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.

Since May 2006, the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project has retrieved nearly 11 tons of gear from around the California Channel Islands (Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Catalina). As well, the project has cleaned more than 1400 pounds of recreational fishing gear off public fishing piers from Santa Cruz to Imperial Beach including more than 1 million feet of fishing line. Several of these piers now have fishing line recycling bins, to encourage proper disposal of unwanted hooks and microfilament.

In 2008-2010, with the support of the California Wildlife ConservationBoard and the NOAA Marine Debris Program, the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project plans to help reduce the potential impact of lost fishing gear on living marine resources and underwater habitat by building upon successes to date to accomplish the following new goals:

• Enhance the function and restore underwater habitat of the Central Coast Marine Protected Areas by focusing gear recovery effort in this newly-established MPA network.
• Expand the recreational fishing gear recovery effort and voluntary fishing gear recycling program to more public-access marine fishing piers and to the charter fishing vessel fleets in Central and Southern California, working toward turn-over of these programs long-term to citizen volunteer groups and the commercial charter industry;
• Retrieve lost fishing gear anywhere on the coast where it is a high priority for removal because of demonstrated or potential impacts to marine wildlife and people, including more work in the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary; and
• Increase the likelihood that ocean users and enthusiasts will know enough about the project and the issue to serve as our "eyes" on and under the water through outreach.

If you have lost fishing gear or if you have encountered or seen lost fishing gear and would like to file a report, please:

• Download a reporting form, or
• Call 1-888-491-GEAR

To download a copy of the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project Policies & Procedures manual (pdf), please click here.

If you have questions about lost fishing gear removal or for copies of our field reports, contact staff:

	Kirsten Gilardi kvgilardi@ucdavis.edu		Jennifer Renzullo jrrenzullo@ucdavis.edu