Abandoned fishing gear has killed more than 30,000 Puget Sound animals

From on deck, it sounded as if Darth Vader were prowling the floor of Puget Sound.

Slow, deep breaths escaped from the speaker that broadcast diver Ken Woodside's every sound from nearly 50 feet below the surface. A two-way-radio connection allowed Woodside to communicate with his crew aboard the support vessel.

His breathing steady, the diver fought against strong currents to grab an abandoned fishing net caught on a reef near Lummi Island close to Bellingham. Then, using his hands and a small serrated knife, Woodside loosened the net and attached to it several inflatable bags. Parts of the old net began to float to the surface, where they were hoisted aboard the support vessel.

"Every time it's a little different," said fellow diver Justin Rondeau, who worked on deck as his colleague navigated the turbid water below. "You have to just go in there and see."

On this day last week, the two divers collected seven abandoned nets totaling more than 800 feet in length — a mere dent in a massive morass of old fishing gear that litters the waters of Puget Sound.

Wildlife experts believe nearly 4,000 nets and 14,000 crab pots lay abandoned in Puget Sound despite more than five years of removal efforts. The gear has already trapped and killed more than 30,000 animals, including marine mammals, fish and birds that dive for food.

Just one of the nets recovered by Woodside last week contained small mollusks, starfish, bird bones and the remains of other critters.

The gear that's been pulled over the years from local waters — a mixture of gill nets, nylon purse-seine nets and crab pots — is thought to have been accidentally lost or cut loose by fishermen, sometimes decades earlier.

These nets and crab pots, known as derelict-fishing gear, can get caught on shallow rocky areas or reefs and continue trapping critters for years.

"Part of the problem is it's an unseen problem," said Larry Paike, chief of conservation and protection for Vancouver Island with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Washington has programs in place to remove derelict fishing gear in Puget Sound, but British Columbia does not. The province has neither surveyed for nor removed abandoned gear off its coast, which spurred Canadian officials to gather with their counterparts in Washington last week for a two-day workshop on net removal.

Nearly a dozen Canadian wildlife experts learned how to establish a removal program in the province, then watched divers pull up abandoned nets near Lummi Island.

"We hope to take what we've learned and import it to Canada," said Jamie Alley, director of the Ministry of Environment's oceans and marine fisheries division in British Columbia. "This is saving us time because we're not having to reinvent the wheel."

Last week's workshop was part of a larger partnership between the state and province to improve the ocean's health. About a year ago, leaders in Washington and B.C. started talking about ways to coordinate protection of the waters they have in common.

Under the agreement, the state hosted the recent session on derelict-gear removal. In mid-November the province will hold a workshop on marine-protected areas for Washington officials and wildlife managers.

"We think on both sides of the border we have things we've been doing right," Alley said. Provincial leaders said they'd like to start with a pilot gear-removal project that focuses on lost crab pots along Vancouver Island's well-fished Saanich Peninsula, north of Victoria.

In Washington, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife is the lead agency coordinating removal of derelict gear. The plan was established about six years ago to rid Puget Sound of abandoned nets and crab pots.

Under that initiative, more than 1,500 sunken crab pots and 900 abandoned fishing nets have been removed at a cost of about $1.75 million. Most of the removal work is done by Northwest Straits Initiative, a group that receives federal, state and private grants for the projects.

Project leaders estimate it will cost an additional $4.5 million to remove almost all derelict fishing gear from Puget Sound by the year 2012.

Fewer nets are now being lost, as commercial fishing has dwindled and new technology has helped fisherman keep track of their gear.

"Particularly when it comes to gill-netters, we have less than 10 percent of what we historically had out there," said Jeff June, a partner with Natural Resources Consultants that contracts with Northwest Straits Initiative to do the removal. "The opportunity of losing new nets is pretty small, so if we can get old gear cleaned up, Puget Sound will stay pretty clear of nets."

For now, days on the water depend on having the money to search for and remove the old nets and crab pots. Natural Resources Consultants has completed about 75 days of gear removal this year, costing about $3,500 each day for the boat and professional divers, June said.

Additional survey work, at about $2,500 a day, helps scientists locate lost crab pots and fishing nets using acoustic sonar and underwater cameras. Fishermen and recreational divers also have reported derelict gear.

Michelle Ma: 206-464-2303 or mma@seattletimes.com