During this year’s annual Abandoned Crab Trap Removal Program, participants from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Coastal Fisheries Division, Texas Game Wardens, volunteers and partner organizations along the Texas Gulf Coast rallied together to search for and discard derelict traps from Texas’ Bays.
For the past 24 years, Texas coastal waters officially close to crabbing with mesh wire cages for 10 consecutive days each February to facilitate the volunteer crab trap cleanup. Any traps left in bays — including traps tied to docks — are assumed abandoned and considered “litter” under state law during the closure period. This allows volunteers to legally remove any crab traps they may find.
This year, TPWD staff, volunteers and partners helped remove 973 traps from Texas Coastal waters. In addition, various marine life was successfully rescued from these now disposed crab traps:
- 320 blue crabs
- 201 stone crabs
- 21 sheepshead
- 13 catfish
- 3 flounder
- 2 Diamondback terrapins
To date, volunteers and TPWD staff have hauled off over 46,000 of these derelict traps, saving an estimated 756,461 blue crabs.
Photo by Art Morris, TPWD.
