Chesapeake Watermen to Clear Abandoned "Ghost" Crab Traps With New Funding
About $225,000 will pay local crabbers to find and remove lost traps in two Maryland arms of the bay.
Fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay are being paid to hunt down lost crab traps that keep catching animals long after anyone stops checking them. Delmarva Public Media reported on 14 October 2026 that the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) announced new funding for its Fishing Trap Removal Assessment and Prevention (TRAP) program.
What's being funded
- $1.2 million nationally for TRAP, according to the report.
- About $225,000 of that for two projects in Maryland's Herring Bay and Eastern Bay, near Tilghman Island.
- Work carried out by the Oyster Recovery Partnership and Raunch Inc., together with local watermen.
"Ghost traps" are blue crab pots that were lost or abandoned. Animals that enter can't escape and die without ever being harvested, and the pots can also disrupt habitat and become navigation hazards.
Why watermen
Local crabbers know what the traps look like and spend more time on the water than anyone, which makes them well placed to find them. The program also pays them for the work, and in one project watermen removing traps also gathered data on shallow bay floors that can be shared with NOAA.
Context
VIMS has worked on the problem since 2008. Reporter Lauren Hines-Acosta of the Bay Journal told Delmarva Public Media that from 2008 to 2014 the effort removed roughly 34,000 ghost traps, though she hedged on the exact figure. She described the work as ongoing "maintenance" rather than a one-time fix, since traps keep getting lost every season.
That honesty matters: this funding won't end ghost fishing in the bay. But clearing traps is a concrete, measurable win for crabs, fish and other wildlife, and it puts money in the pockets of the people who work the water.