Federal funding has been approved to begin removing some of the hundreds of thousands of derelict lobster traps left behind on the floor of the Long Island Sound, a “ghost fishery” that continues to trap and kill marine life.
The effort to remove the old lobster traps in Connecticut waters is similar to the one taken in the New York waters of Long Island Sound. Since 2011, the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County has removed 19,000 abandoned traps — about 91% were still functioning. About a third of those were found to have live crabs, fish and lobsters, including pregnant females, often attracted by other animals that had died inside the trap, said Scott Curatolo-Wagemann, senior educator at the agency.
It’s been estimated that about one million lobster traps have been left behind in Long Island Sound, either lost accidentally over the years or abandoned after the region’s $12 million lobster industry crashed in 1999, fueled in part by a massive die-off of lobsters, Curatolo-Wagemann said. “The guys who had stayed in it, most of the guys we’re working with are multi-generational fishermen. A lot of them in their 70s. And they were full-time lobstermen at one point,” Curatolo-Wagemann said. “They kind of knew over the years where different guys had fished their traps. So their knowledge has been invaluable to us being able to locate these things.
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