A group of student volunteers is working to clean up the coast, one crab trap at a time.
Interdisciplinary studies senior Bran Wagner has been working with renewable natural resources assistant professor Julie Anderson to organize a volunteer effort to decrease the number of derelict crab traps along the coasts in St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Terrebonne parishes.
Wagner said the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has made efforts like this for years, but this is the first time volunteers were called in to help.
A derelict crab trap is “any trap that is not being actively fished and tended,” according to the website for the Louisiana Sea Grant.
Wagner said recreational boaters often accidentally cut the lines that connect crab traps to the colorful buoys that signal to fisherman where they are or storms can blow them off course.
If a fisherman can’t find his or her trap, it fills with fish and crabs that die when the fishermen can’t collect them. The focus of the research is to determine how many crabs are being wasted.
The forgotten traps wash up on the shore, which is where volunteers go to collect them.
Wagner said volunteers are trained to collect traps, record the number of dead crabs inside, place what was in the trap back into the water and bring the trap itself to a safe disposal site.
Because the traps are made of plastic-coated metal, Wagner said they must be brought to a landfill.
Wagner said the response from University students has been positive and several of them have volunteered for the project.
“All of them seem really thrilled,” he said. “A lot of them signed on because they’d never been to the coast. They all seemed to like it and they were really excited and enthusiastic.”
The group collected 1,950 traps at its first two collection days.
 
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Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]