April 7, 2021 — A coalition of California fishing and seafood groups is grappling with environmental groups and animal welfare activists over state legislation to mandate the adoption of ropeless gear in commercial and recreational fisheries to protect whales.
The struggle is closely watched on the East Coast, where Massachusetts state fisheries officials are embarking on a one-year experiment with ropeless or “pop-up” gear aiming to reduce entanglement danger for endangered right whales.
One tack taken by California Dungeness crabbers when talking to state lawmakers is to portray ropeless gear as unreliable – and potentially increasing the danger that lost gear poses to marine mammals.
“We have a pretty strong argument on our side,” said Ben Platt, president of the California Coast Crab Association. “I think the thing that resonates most is that anyone on the fishing industry side worked with pop-up gear thinks it is unworkable.”
“There’s at least a 20 percent failure rate,” said Platt. If used widely that could lead to “tangles of lost gear…not only a huge marine pollution issue,” he said. “That’s really our number-one argument and that’s what they (state legislators) seem to key in on.”