The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has chosen William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science as home base for a new national program focused on protecting U.S. coastal waters from derelict fishing gear.

Derelict gear refers to fishing equipment that has been lost, abandoned or otherwise discarded in the water, commonly due to storms and boat traffic. It can harm ecosystems and economies by trapping and killing targeted and bycatch species, damaging marine habitats and competing with actively fished gear.

VIMS’s new Nationwide Fishing TRAP Program—Trap Removal, Assessment and Prevention—will fund removal of the pots and traps used to harvest crabs and lobsters, and establish a Derelict Trap Policy Innovation Lab to synthesize the collected data to inform prevention and mitigation policies at the state and federal levels.

Created by Drs. Kirk Havens, Donna Bilkovic and Andrew Scheld, the TRAP program builds on VIMS’s success in leading a multi-year partnership with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and Virginian watermen to remove more than 34,000 derelict or “ghost” crab pots from the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists in this Virginia Marine Debris Removal Program also pioneered methods to assess the economic and ecologic impacts of the derelict pots and the benefits of their removal.