OceansWide (est. 2007) is an educational non-profitbased in the Gulf of Maine that is dedicated to marine education and ocean conservation. The program started as a way to teach kids to dive as well as pilot remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), but after spotting lobster traps littering the seafloor, OceansWide switched gears…to derelict fishing gear! Buzz Scott, the president of OceansWide, describes their team of 27 as “an eclectic mix” of students, commercial fishermen, and local community members. Though the team comes from different backgrounds, a strong passion for a healthy gulf brings them together and motivates even the youngest divers to brave the cold, murky waters of Maine’s gulf. OceansWide has removed an impressive 14,000 traps from the Gulf of Maine since the start of their marine debris program in 2019.
As a project partner of the National TRAP program, OceansWide targets and retrieves derelict lobster traps around Vinalhaven Island, which sits 10 miles offshore from the coast of Maine and is only accessible by ferry. Since the 1990s, Vinalhaven fisheries have primarily targeted lobster, but traps often become derelict due to “hang-downs,” where they snag on the rocky coast and snap their lines. Boating activity and storms during the summer also contribute to gear becoming derelict. Some lost gear clusters into house-sized “gear balls” that can entangle boats and marine species alike. Meanwhile, the derelict traps littering the bottom of the Gulf act as deadly time capsules, with cages from as early as the 1990s continuing to trap lobster and bycatch species. Although many traps have escape vents for bycatch, these vents can become clogged with mussels, mud, and other debris – leaving little chance of escape once an animal enters. The OceansWide team estimates that around 66% of the traps they recover have animals present, and around 80% of these animals are deceased.
OceansWide has two main boats between which they alternate on retrieval days; one for divers, and one for transporting recovered traps. The first day in a retrieval week is spent targeting and marking traps through visual survey, side-scan sonar, and ROVs. Then, a lobster boat is deployed the next day to recover the marked traps. The last day is spent processing the recovered gear on shore and recycling as much of the material as possible. Over the span of five weeks and with a team seven strong, OceansWide targeted and retrieved 354 derelict lobster traps from the Gulf and recycled 26,550 lbs of derelict material.
The response to OceansWide’s endeavors from the Vinalhaven community has been overwhelmingly positive. Local fishermen, in particular, are “very excited and very supportive” of OceanWide’s efforts to remove derelict gear from the Gulf of Maine. Every lobster caught by derelict traps is a lobster lost from a fisherman’s haul, so removing these traps is lucrative to the business of surrounding fisheries. In fact, some fishermen have begun to fish in areas that OceansWide has cleaned up because a reduction in derelict traps is good for business! “Word spreads like wildfire on Vinalhaven, so the momentum behind this project has been fantastic,” Scott explains.
