Continued
The state Department of Environmental Protection has issued fish trap
licenses to 14 commercial fishermen in Fairfield County, according
to department records, but the agency does not limit the number of
traps fishermen can set.
The agency does
not require fishermen to maintain their traps, said Eric Smith, director
of the DEP's marine fisheries division.
"We regulate
the exploitation rate because it's a hard thing to enforce,"
Smith said. "It drains enforcement to keep a person under observation
to see if he's been out there every 25 days. It's about the effectiveness
of enforcement."
DEP regulations
allow commercial fishermen a catch limit of 25 blackfish, and lobstermen
a limit of 10.
Like Connecticut,
New York does not have limits on how many traps can be set, or how
often fishermen need to tend their traps, said Lori O'Connell, a spokeswoman
for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
But the department
has received complaints, she said, and is considering policy changes.
Massachusetts
has trap limits for sea bass and porgy, but Dan McKiernan, an official
with the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, said he hasn't
heard of an abandoned trap problem.
Smith said most
of the complaints he hears are about lobstermen exceeding their limit
on blackfish.
"I have not
heard that complaint" about ghost traps, he said. "This
is my first call."
Mola said he called
Smith two years ago, after fishermen began picking up the traps by
mistake and coming across unmarked fish pots.
"I was in
shock when I found out about . . . the number of traps. I had oystermen,
lobstermen, clammers coming in distressed about the situation,"
he said. "So I called Eric and voiced my disappointment."
Even though blackfishing
in the Sound has slowed, the DEP needs to get a handle on fish traps,
Mola said.
"If the fisherman
isn't taking responsibility, the DEP should take over," he said.
"They are supposed to protect our environment. And our environment
isn't being protected."
It is not clear
whose traps are in the harbor. Smith said they should have identifying
numbers so the DEP could contact the owner to have them removed. But
"there's no law against (fishermen) leaving the pots out there,"
Smith said.
Some said the
traps may belong to Richard Courville, who has a commercial license
in Fairfield County. But Courville said he hasn't fished in a year.
"All my gear
is on land," he said.
Others, such as
Tony Carlo, a lobsterman, point to non-commercial fishermen.
"There's
just as many single-trap people who leave their traps through the
islands," he said. "You have to figure those traps are in
the ball park of $100 each ... Do you think a (commercial) fisherman
would want to abandon them?"
Art Glowka, a
Stamford shellfish commissioner, said it's cheaper to leave the traps
in the water than remove them. No one wants to take on the arduous
task of cleaning them up, he said.
"It's like
trying to catch a flea in a bathtub. All these traps are ballasted
down by bricks," Glowka said. "Any time you use fishtraps,
no one has the time or effort to clean them up - especially when someone
says, 'I'm still fishing.' . . . And he is still fishing because he
doesn't have to tend to them."
The traps are
supposed to have escape vents to let the fish out, but Backer said
the openings are too small to allow fish of legal catch size to escape,
and sometimes they are covered with barnacles.
"The fish
never see the opening," he said.
Backer, who is
also a state representative, said he plans to introduce a bill next
legislative session that would limit the number of traps that fishermen
could lay in a certain area and would require maintenance.
"I don't
think they're bad for Long Island Sound or should be banned from the
Sound," Backer said. "It's acceptable to use them if they're
tended to. Then they won't indiscriminately kill fish."
