To the editor:
I’d like to follow up on a comment I made regarding the Lincoln Chronicle humpback whale stranding article of Nov. 19.
First, I’d like to thank all the folks — citizens, groups and government — who tried to rescue the young Humpback whale.
But, I think the question remains — why was fishing gear from the 2023-24 season still in the water?
I believe the state’s (voluntary) derelict gear removal program — letting permitted crabbers keep any recovered pots — needs improvement before further entanglements occur.
A case in point. After the 2024 program was announced in August 2024, I contacted the ODFW derelict program staff, first by phone, then several emails. Our home is on a bluff on the ocean and three sets of floats were visible, some more than a year old. We had been excited about how many whales we were seeing, but concerned about the floats and lines.
The commercial crabbing season had ended on Aug. 15, and gear was to be removed. This was before the derelict gear removal program was to start on Aug. 30. We thought three early, successful removals would help kick off the program.
After emailing that we and neighbors had seen whales among, and close, to the floats and lines, we were told they would try to have someone get ahold of the floats. After another email we were eventually told they would “highlight the location on their data sheet for super sensitive area and to please prioritize.”
That was the last we heard. The floats remained through the 2024 derelict removal program. A fourth appeared this spring.
Fortunately, in July we recovered, during the extreme low tides, one of the buoys and line. And, I believe, I recovered one, with line, Thursday morning.
We have seen the great work crabbers do to recover their traps. Even using air hoses to blow away sand from the traps. But we think the state must place greater emphasis on removing derelict gear that remains — such as better outreach to the public of the program; education for identifying and reporting gear; better focus on removals with better coordination, prioritization and targeting of work with the crabbers; better response to reports, such as ours; and more incentives for the crabbers who remove the derelict gear — even paying for recovery?
A better, more efficient program might have prevented the recent entanglement with 2023-24 gear. The current system does not seem, to us, to be working as we approach the 2025-26 crabbing season and following removal of gear.
We understand an investigation of the entanglement and stranding of the young Humpback is being conducted. We hope that it will include improving the state’s derelict gear program.
— Donald Patton/Yachats
