Divers lift 50 tons of fishing gear from Whatcom County’s waters

BELLINGHAM — Divers have pulled thousands of old fishing nets and crab pots from Washington’s marine waters since 2002, and they expect to finish much of the work this year thanks in part to federal stimulus dollars.

The Bellingham Herald reports that divers working with the Northwest Straits Initiative have pulled more than 2,650 fishing nets and more than 2,000 crab pots left behind by commercial and recreational fishers because of bad weather, mistakes or mechanical failures.

Some 50 tons of nets, crab pots and other old fishing gear came from waters off Whatcom County, most of it near Lummi Island and Point Roberts.

The removal effort got a big boost in June with $4.6 million in federal stimulus money. That money is allowing the initiative to focus on removing about 90 percent of lost and abandoned commercial fishing nets from Puget Sound waters by next December.

“The nets continue to fish indiscriminately and catch a whole variety of marine life,” said Ginny Broadhurst, director for Northwest Straits Initiative, a conservation organization authorized by Congress.

Nearly 137,000 marine mammals, birds, fish and invertebrates have been found in abandoned gear that has been pulled up so far. Of that number, nearly 54,000 were dead.

Most of the fishing nets are gillnets, although crews have removed purse seine, trawl and aquaculture nets, as well as shrimp and octopus traps.

Removing the derelict gear will not only protect marine life, but also recreational divers who could drown if ensnared.

Crews have been working in fishing grounds for commercial salmon. They use side-scan sonar, which can cover large areas of sea bed a day, to help find crab pots and rocky reefs or shipwrecks that may have snagged nets.

In a recent update, the Mount Vernon-based initiative said it has made 13 places in the Puget Sound free of derelict fishing nets. Among them is Viti Rocks off Lummi Island, where five nets have been removed.