Ghost Pots Menace: Uncovering the Hidden Impact on Long Island Sound's Fishing Industry

Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of the New York Fishing Podcast. Today we will be talking about the ghost pots which are aligning the Long Island Sound. This is a serious issue. There are estimated to be between 800,000 and 1.3 million of these pots, most of which were left behind after the collapse of the lobster. So, while everyone is getting ready to get out fishing which I hope you're doing, because things have been pretty hot this week I want you to listen in on this ghost pot issue because we're going to need folks to help us get these things out of the Long Island Sound. I'd like to introduce our guest, scott Curitolo Wagamon. He is a senior resource educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Suffolk County and is the director of fisheries of the fisheries department within the marine program. This guest is exciting to me in that he's like looking at all these things that I'm always concerned with when it comes to fisheries management and just our overall fisheries. So, scott, please explain to people how what you do is different in that you actually your hands on. You know, the biggest, the biggest complaint most anglers have is that they're getting directions from people's sitting behind a desk. You know, so I mean, you're actually hands on. So if you could explain to the folks what you do and what your team does.

Yeah, certainly, and thanks for having me on the podcast, george. It's an honor I'm having a few of them, you know very excited to be here and glad you invited me. So part of what we do goes back to the cooperative extension system itself. Each of the counties within New York has a cooperative extension, Cornell being a land grant university for New York, and most of the cooperative extensions deal with horticulture, agriculture, some environmental problems. And then 30 odd years ago some researchers realized that you know, kind of the same sort of issues they were seeing in the agriculture industry could be directly related to things in the fishing industry here in New York and Suffolk County. You know we're surrounded by water in Nassau County, surrounded by water. So 30 odd years ago the marine program here at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County was initiated And in general we've been kind of focused on five different program areas. We do youth education, we do habitat restoration, things like seal eelgrass. We do shellfish restoration You know, i know you've had Dr Tettle back on, so we've been doing things you know for the base, calps and the buconics, different townships with clams and oysters. We also do water quality. So we do a lot of stormwater remediation work with municipalities and help them deal with the stormwater regulations that the EPA and the state have. And then we have fisheries. So most of my early part of the career I was with the water quality was a little bit of fisheries. And about 10 years ago I started becoming more interested in fisheries And I'd always kind of worked a little bit on some projects here and there, but it was never enough at the time to really get involved. You know they would need an extra person to go out on a boat to go diving or, you know, to just measure fish, and you know my interest was there but it hadn't been peaked yet. So about 10 years ago is when I started becoming more involved And what makes a lot of our projects rewarding is that. Again, going back to the dynamic of the cooperative extension where they're working with the farmers and the agriculture department, what sets us apart from just basic research is that we just about always have a cooperative research project with the industry fishing industry. Mostly we've been working with commercial industry, but we also do things with the recreational. It's just, you know, the nature of some of the projects we have, the interests of the researchers and some of what the industry has come to us with. So a lot of the ideas we have aren't even generated from us. They're ones that the industry sees, either through regulations or, you know, designing new bycatch gear that may be trialed over in Europe but hasn't been approved here in the United States. So, yeah, they come to us, you know, and we have been fairly successful with some federal grant programs. So we kind of know where a specific idea may be the best fit for federal funding.

Well, there you have it, folks. Let's get those fish killers out of the long on sound. Thanks for listening. All, please subscribe to the channel. I could use all the support I could get as I try to advocate for the recreational angler and the recreational fishing industry, and with always the resource in mind. You can see me, or see me visit me over at myanglercom. I'm there each and every day along with a group of really fine, knowledgeable fishermen and fishing ladies. That's why we call it New York angler. Well, i'll see you folks soon. I have episode after episode that'll be pumping out. Good luck, good fishing, and I hope you guys, gals, get out there soon and enjoy what's soon to be the best fishing New York has to offer. Take in advice and you've actually applied it.

Okay, and one of the you know best ones and you know I believe it's the one you had taken the most interest in or when you contacted me is our derelict lobster program. You know, back in 99, 2000, there was the catastrophic lobster die off in the Long Island Sound. You know, at the height of the lobster industry between Connecticut and New York And New York there were permits for I think it was just under 500,000 traps. Tags were issued that year, so that was kind of the high watermark, i believe, for trap fishing for lobsters. And then you had the die off And then what you saw was guys getting out of the industry And sometimes what happened was storms. They were lost traps. Sometimes there were guys who were just casually fishing, yet they had a commercial license, but they weren't necessarily commercial. Lobstering was not their full-time job.

There were a lot of those back then And I remember all that.

So what happened is is real estate's money, and you had guys kind of either leaving them there knowing they weren't going to come back, or at least like you know what next year's going to be better. I'm just going to leave my traps out there. And then by the time it was full on realization that the lobster population within the Long Onesan was not coming back. A lot of guys I don't even remember where I had my traps And the buoys have long since gone and they just weren't there.

All right, listen, scott, you're sound like a really good guy, but you're kind of going around and around the offense. Let's face it. I mean, i get it. They. Probably they were hurting bad enough as it was. The lobsters all died, they're all gone. So they just in most and I'm not trying to knock anybody, but this is what happened. They left them there And in some cases, i'm sure they you know they did lose the buoys or whatever, but in many cases they did leave them there. So you know, we got to call it speed to speed, so to speak. So, but yeah, and again, i'm not saying it, but look, i just see irony in that When I first looked you up, right, i was reading some stuff and you know I saw how I think we're working somehow with Connecticut on this or they're doing what, or we're doing what they're doing, or and I was like the answer's got to be we're going to pay the same people that left them. We're going to pay them to get them out, because they're the only ones that know where they are. So is that what's happening? I mean to control the chase of you know how we get there.

Right, yes and no. The issue was and this was, you know, eventually the issue with Connecticut, and I actually don't remember what it was in New York. But eventually the guys who had stayed in the industry had said like, look, you know, we're trying to set our traps. There's lots of traps out there that just are not being used. We're either telling them to an area we know is there's hangs, just to get them out of the way. So they'd come to us and said, look, you know, we'd like to develop a program where we can remove these traps. And unfortunately I don't know what it was in New York. I know for Connecticut it took them a while to change their laws because it had to do with private property that you couldn't just pull them up And make sense So regardless. I know you know for New York the program had started before I was involved, but you know, I know what our letter from the DEC says And the only you know the lobstermen that we work with are ones who still have a current lobster license and are in good standing.

Okay.

So that's that matters. Question about you know, yeah, going out getting their traps that they put out there, so so yeah, I'm sorry to me too. Yeah, but it's always been a cooperative. you know the industry came to us and we started, you know, some pilot projects just to see what was out there. So we didn't know Right. And then it's been a lot of cooperation with either municipalities, because the other issue is that once we grapple these and we pull them up, we've got to contact the fishermen to see if they want their traps back. So we have to hold the traps for 30 days in case the fishermen would like to reclaim their traps. In most cases, you know these traps have been buried for over 10 years. They're not in any functional shape. So in most cases they say they, you know they don't want them. So again, we've worked with a lot of municipalities so that we have a staging area where we can kind of keep some traps. Again, it's been a lot of like balancing acts and learning over time And the success of the project. early on we would have to pay for a metal recycling company. You know you, you know Dumpster this always costs, right Yeah. But eventually they realized that this was such a great program that they provided match. So in, you know, in other words, they weren't charging us, they were doing it for the project. And usually that's what is required in some of these federal grants is that you know there may be, say, 50% match where if we're looking, you know, to do a project of $100,000, we've got to essentially come up with a $150,000 project where $50,000 then is match. So again, where that comes in is the metal recycling company, you know, providing donating the in-kind services of, you know, a dumpster and picking up and, you know, removing that dumpster. the municipalities come down once the dumpsters delivered to the port, you know, they come down and they load the dumpster with the traps and then they'll crush them with the front end loader. Again, all things that you know are they're not charging to the grants but they're providing those services. So that's how this program has been able to go, for I think we've been doing it for 11 years.

So can I ask how many? I have a few questions. I'm sure that these pots that you're finding, even though they're old 10 years old, whatever, most of these pots are killing fish, am I correct? I mean, i could see it's like a cycle, right? A fish goes in, it dies, another fish goes in to eat that, that fish or whatever.

Yes, and it's called ghost fishing. Yeah, and I have to see, you know, at one point one of our projects we were seeing about 25 or 30% were ghost fishing, so that we would pull up a pot and there was some sort of you know live animal in it, most of them fish, but sometimes, you know, lobsters, sometimes, you know, get a lot of spider crabs, right, But, yes, finfish we're getting in there and we've been trying to. That's kind of. The next step of funding that we've been looking at is seeing if there's a way we can see what that rate of ghost fishing is. So it would have to be designing some sort of project where there's an underwater camera and use a baited trap and just record over a certain period of time how much is getting in there, so that we can start to see what is that rate of ghost fishing, because we don't know, we pull up an empty trap. Okay, good, that one counts towards the 75%. That wasn't ghost fishing, but if we picked it up yesterday maybe it did, or last week, maybe it was The same thing with the ones we are finding. Maybe that one has never ghost fished before but just happened to have one that day.

Yeah, i can see that, But all right, so they are killing fish. I'm not trying to make this like this is the end of the world, but the truth is I feel that once the lobsters died, once they had to die off, a lot of those guys started targeting blackfish. And the price right now of alive blackfish I mean you're not supposed to sell them in New York But if you walk around into the city into various markets, you can find them alive blackfish is $5 a pound. So, i'm sorry, $25 a pound. So a five pound fish is like 125 bucks. So when you have that kind of price tag on a fish, they were getting targeted. And at the same time you had the ghost pots which we don't know how many of those were killing blackfish. You know, i was at the table literally when we wrote the blackfish bill and we made the commercial limit 25 fish a boat And at the time we weren't going to allow and we could have got pushed through. We weren't even going to allow potting at all for blackfish. But the lobstermen requested look, we get a bycatch, we get a couple, you know, here and there, but it does helps, you know, help us. So we were like all right, you know you can keep your bycatch, and then that turned into a targeted fishery, so you know. So how many pots do you think there are out there? So if there were 500,000 permits, is that? that? is that what we said? There was a lot of A thousand tags.

So yeah, it's easily we can say there's tens of thousands out there because we've over the 11 years we've pulled 21,000 out And that's just on the New York side. So you know we've we're trying to go into different areas. The issue that we're kind of running into now is because of the DC permit and the stipulations I mentioned before, that we've got to use a lobstermen who still has a valid permit and is a good standing. A lot of again, a lot of the industry here is left And there's not too many lobstermen out there. So we're kind of limited by the ports that we're operating out of. So you know we've done a good cleanup within Central Long Island Sound. You know there could be other areas. you know we're always finding other areas that we hadn't been to before. But you know Western Long Island and Eastern Long Island we really have not done that much out there just because again, trying to find a fisherman who fits those requirements is tough. You know we've had some guys that we've worked with, you know, say, out of Mount Sinai. you know it's the cost of fuels getting a lot. So they've been willing to go further west or east of where they normally would have gone. But now you know, fuel being what it is And again these projects being, you know, the fishermen putting in some match. you know it's becoming economically tough to keep that portion up without finding other participants.

So you get this. great. it just seems to me, isn't there a way that someone could say to DC look, we can't find anybody, but we have this money, we need to do this work. you know, is there someone else we could hire? I mean, i got to give you an example. There's a friend of mine. his name is John Skinner. He's got a ton of YouTube videos. Yes, and in many of those underwater video, now, that's the guy going out rec fishing right, you know, recreationally fishing And that drone there's a ghost pot. I've seen at least three times where his drone has picked up ghost pots. So why aren't we like employing new technology where we don't have to depend on everybody? I mean, with the sonar and everything we have now, you could pick out a five inch rock on the bottom of the.

Yeah, no, and we are. We are starting to. you know it was now that we're getting Connecticut on board. Connecticut is just starting their program. You know they decided. You know they did want to reinvent the wheel. We've been doing this for a while, so they are patterning their program after what we've been doing here. Oh okay, so they're just getting started Some of their projects. They have been able to get some side scan sonar. We actually have a current project that we're hopefully starting within a month or so. That was based upon some side scan sonar. That's some images in Oyster Bay. The issue, though, is, you know, making sure we don't know if they're lobster pots for sure, or, if they're, you know they could be welk pots.

Right, yeah, there's so many variables And I get that And you know that was a problem originally And I guess still is kind of, in that there is no real definition of a blackfish pot. It's still, you know, it's still basically a lobster pot. So but hey, it is what it is when it comes to that. But the bottom line is the black fish, i mean the blackfish fishery, to talk fish fishery is coming back, but it's a much. You know the fishery is being managed to keep a lot of small fish, you know, and it's kind of working in that regard. But there's the number of big breeders that we used to see. They just not around And you know, i don't believe in coincidence as the price goes up on any fishery. We used to see that with Stripe Bass. You know the fishery hurts And because not everybody's honest most people are but not everyone, not everyone is And there's so many different ways to push these fish out onto the market. But so it's great that you guys are doing this. It really is, you know, like I had no clue when I was wondered, like I used to fish the shore and pipeline. I don't know if you guys did any work there, but that thing is just lined from one end to the other with pots. There are no fish left there for a traditional anglers. So, but I'm wondering how many of those are ghosts, or you know how many down there? You know, i always think about the areas I fish. You know I've fished in Smithtown Bay and all throughout that area, and you know you're floaking, you're snagging apart. It happens, happens quite often. So, but all right, so now what else? what else are you guys doing? Well, maybe, look, let me change this a little bit. So what is your opinion on the changing of our waters here in New York, and specifically in the sound, because I kind of feel like the sound is warming faster. You know, we have a lot of people that have listened to this thing that they kind of deny that things are happening, but the truth is they are. I don't know what's causing it, but it's happening. So what are your? how do you feel? I mean, like, since I was a child, i saw you see Tom Codden sound, you know macro runs, we had dolphin all over the place. I mean it was a totally different fishery. We had, you know, black, you know nice winter flounder, but we didn't have sea bass, right, we didn't have a lot of fluke, we didn't. So what do you think is happening?

Yeah, it's just a lot of it, i think is just, you know, with the waters changing, the you know temperature, yeah, we're seeing different stocks And you know, besides the lobster stuff, you know we haven't really done much in Long Island Sound A little bit. You know we do a stripe bass specific project for the DC right now. But, like you said, you know you're seeing more black sea bass. You know they're coming up. You know you're hearing of other species that have been managed. You know, with the different councils. You know species that are now used to be controlled by the Mid-Atlantic Council are now moving up to New England. You know, and the same thing was, you know we've got, you know, southern Atlantic Council fish moving up to Mid-Atlantic And some of the issues are gonna be that you know some of those decisions need to be changed because then you get an area who you know council, who's doing regulations for fish that's no longer in their area. Yeah, i think that's gonna have to be, you know, a big change coming up. Well, at least that's to be talked about either the council or the commission.

Yeah, you know. a good example of that is Florida having a vote in stripe bass. They don't get stripe bass down there, but you know, because it's the East Coast. So but in any case, so you're doing all this great work around Long Island, how big is your team And do you advise, or you're just on the? you're just doing the work to get results?

We're doing it. you know, again, we've been working with a lot of these partners for 30 plus years, so we're kind of, in a way, invested, you know, in their future and our future as well, you know. so, like the stripe bass, that was one of the recreational projects we did, you know, when it was first started to see that. you know there were maybe some measures gonna come down back in 2018. You know we applied for grant to do some just recreational stripe bass information from New York, you know, knowing that at some point there were gonna be some new regulations and then eventually it did hit that you know you had to use circle hooks for live bait, different handling techniques for best management practices. But recently we've been also doing a project for the DEC because it's been quite a long time since they've done any PCB analysis on stripe bass.

Very interesting. I'm gonna have to follow up with you on that.

We started last year and again the DEC knows that we've got great relationships with the commercial and recreational for higher industry, specifically in this case where we've been able to collect stripe bass samples from five different geographic areas around Long Island and collect monthly samples of striped bass so they can analyze them for PCB concentrations to see if things have gotten better. so maybe they can open up more areas that have been closed.

Yeah, and if you all knew that was coming. Do you mean the invisible line? Oh, the magical line where the fish go past it? right, it's rock away. If they're headed east, they get magically cleaned, and if they? go west they get. All of a sudden they're loaded with PCBs. I don't know which one it is. I remember one time they were considering different sides of the river to make them, because some fish in the Hudson had less PCBs than the other ones. I'm like, wait a minute, these fish are going all over the place. But yeah, so that's pretty interesting. I suspected that they would start looking at that, because I don't know how I feel about it, but they got a certain number of tags and that's it. I've learned over the years that it is poaching a bob, and when it comes to striped bass they're pretty strict. So I think that's the one fishery that we don't really have to worry about that much as far as the health of the stock and what the Hudson's producing. So, all right, look, scott, i don't want to keep you tied up all day here, and I really do appreciate this.

Now, appreciate you having me on.

We're going to talk again and I'm going to turn it. Go ahead.

I've got a staff of I think you would ask that question. I currently have a staff of 10. A lot of it is we wrote a lot during COVID, when we couldn't do much field work. We wrote a lot and at the time during COVID, we were a staff of five and we've doubled. We currently have 11 different projects. So basically, i've described two or three of the projects we're working on. We've got several local seafood projects that we're trying to get people to eat more local seafood. And then a lot of gear adaptation stuff that we do up and down just looking at different gear to help reduce bycatch or increase targeted catch for different fisheries.

So, scott, there is one thing I did want to mention. So you have, you're reaching out to party boats, right, and you're reaching out to commercial fishermen. Have you guys ever considered actually reaching out to recreational fishermen? There are plenty of recreational fishermen that can give you a ton of information. Like you're not getting any fish from the surf, right. So it's, i mean, we are here and we would love to be a part of it, and I know that We have actually, you know you're going to go and go Okay, that's great.

So we're actually, you know, a fishing club on the North Shore, you know, in Suffolk County, that had contacted us And I think we had put in, for this is a marine debris, or actually it may have been expansion of the artificial reef years ago when the DC was doing that. So, yeah, no, we've always been, you know, trying to fit recreational stuff in.

Yeah, because we're here. We're here to help.

We always seem to get like overlooking us Right And with the Stripe Bass, when we again, sometimes it comes down to regulations, we can't. We were trying to figure that out with our. You know, our current project with the Stripe Bass PCB being that now we're going to be, you know, sampling both Long Island waters this year the beginning of the year and then all of kind of the Western New York embayments throughout the year. You know, if there was any wiggle room with the recreational industry, you know, while we can't, you know that we do have funds that cover some of the costs. You know, for recreational, what we can work out is if guys are interested in taking us out, they know where the fish are. You know there's something we can work out where we pay for bait or we pay for some fuel or something like that. So that's one of the ways we're trying to get more participants, more stakeholders, involved with that particular project.

Well, that's great. I mean, if you could email me something, if you have anything regarding those programs, i could link them up on our website and get the word out through our social media. And because I know people would just love to be involved Now I would be remiss not to pass this last hot potato by you. Do you have any comment on the whales that are washing ashore and the overall effect of the windmills? What you? when I look at it, i see windmills in the path of these whales. You know they're putting them right in the migration path, but I know I kind of know where you are and what you do. It may not be easy for you to comment.

Right, all I know is that, you know, i've been trying to keep up on it And this morning I was reading something that was linked through, you know, a fishery website that you know. I guess the official word on some of the ones that were found this weekend were vessel strikes.

Yeah, No, I agree, but how come no one ever mentions is they seem to be more vessel strikes. So maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Maybe they're being disoriented And that's why they're getting whacked by ships. No one ever brings that point up. And the other thing is someone's got to tell these people, you know, oh, you know, climate change is not the biggest threat to the whales. They've been here for 50, but they've been through a lot of cooling and warming And we're the only threat right now. But anyway, I had to get that out. I have to. I've been all over, you know, all over. It's from two years ago, you know, they laid it all out. They laid it all out. But anyway, Scott, you are a great guest and I am going to have you on. And when do you think you're going to have that PCB study complete?

I'd love to touch base with you Well if you're allowed to, if you always know, I can tell you that you know we'll be done. Cornell's involvement, as far as working with the industry and obtaining the samples and working the samples up, You know we're done this year. as for the analysis, That's out of our hands.

Okay, yeah, all right, good enough, i'll. I got enough people I speak to over there and he'll give it to us, yeah, and we know.

Anything we get. We try to pass on to the industry as much as we know. That's great.

Scott, look, i you know. I appreciate you taking the time and explaining to our audience that there are people out there that actually work with the end and recreational fishermen. I'm glad you brought that up and that you're working on getting those pots, those ghost pots. That we're all you know. We all know what's going on. We've all snagged one, we've all seen, yeah. So keep up the good work with that.

Yeah, and again that's another thing You know if you were your listeners. Again, you know the specific place. You guys have the knowledge And again that's how we started this with the commercial industry. They knew where pots were And you know if we can put something together again, you got video. Then that just can certainly go into a grant submission and you know that would probably be a Long Island. Sound Future Funds grant coming up within the next month. They're going to announce that, so that would be the perfect opportunity that you know if you've got some good sonar images or drone images or anything.

Oh, yeah, have drone area where there's pots.

You know that that that will help a proposal and you know help the the chances that it'll get funded.

Absolutely. A picture is, as they say, a thousand words, and it's not nothing truer than that when it comes to fisheries, because people you know fish are under the water and they never see what's going on. If you give them actual video and they see this fish trapped in a pot being killed, they're going to think differently. So, all right, scott, look, thanks. So again, send me whatever you have and I'll get it up on our website, and I'll also, you know, be reaching out to some of our friends. You know recreational folks that I think might be interested in helping out with this.

Yeah, great.

All right. So thanks again, scott. We'll talk again soon. Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Bye, bye, bye. Well, there you have it, folks. Let's get those fish killers out of the long on sound. Thanks for listening. All, please subscribe to the channel. I could use all the support I could get as I tried to advocate for the recreational angler and the recreational fishing industry, and with always the resource in mind. You can see me, or see me visit me, over at my anglercom. I'm there each and every day along with a group of really fine, knowledgeable fishermen and fishing ladies. That's why we call it New York Angler. Well, i'll see you folks soon. I have episode after episode that'll be pumping out. Good luck, good fishing, and I hope you guys and gals get out there soon and enjoy what's soon to be the best fishing New York has to offer.