EHL is helping introduce “pop-up” gear which does not entangle and kill whales.

Many fisheries, including crab and lobster, use ‘pot’ traps that lie on the ocean floor and connect to a surface buoy with vertical lines. With hundreds of these lines bunched in the path of migrating whales, entanglement is a terrible danger. Fortunately, the technology of “pop up” gear dispenses with the lines and allows the traps to rise to the surface when signaled electronically. 

The Marine Innovations Gear Alliance, of which EHL is a part, promotes the gear in order to facilitate a transition. EHL has secured foundation grants over several years that have allowed our partner, Sustainable Seas Technology, to go out on the water to train fishers in the new technique. 

Just in the last year, we trained 59 fishers and 10 governmental personnel, with an estimated 300 fishers being indirectly educated. In person trainings were held in San Diego, Sausalito, San Francisco, Ventura,  Oceanside, Fountain Valley, San Juan Capistrano, Channel Islands Harbor, Oxnard, Huntington Beach, and Santa Barbara. We salute courageous “early adopters” in an industry whose leadership has stubbornly opposed change.

To overcome financial barriers, EHL is managing another foundation grant which provides a subsidy for fishers who invest in pop up gear. There has been great interest and all 30 available slots were quicky filled. Unlike the old gear, the new gear is not prone to loss, and confers long term cost savings.

On the regulatory front, use of the new gear – now a proven and reliable technology – was approved for the large Dungeness crab fishery by the State of California for use in the Spring, when whales are migrating. The state can and should do much more, however, such as broadening its use to related fisheries.

With the help of some of the fishermen themselves, important progress is being made. There is no excuse for continued whale suffering.