247 
Abstract —Pots are a form of trap used 
to capture fishes, crustaceans, or gastro- 
pod mollusks. Occasionally, these traps 
are lost at sea, where they have the 
potential to fish for many years because 
they are constructed of robust man- 
made materials. The present study 
quantified the mortality and number 
of animals caught by a fleet of crusta- 
cean pots (12 pots) that were set on the 
seabed and left to fish continually in 
a manner designed to simulate ghost- 
fishing off the coast of Wales, UK. The 
bait originally placed in the pots was 
consumed within 28 days of the begin- 
ning of the experiment. Spider crabs 
and brown crabs dominated the catches 
within the pots throughout the experi- 
ment. The CPUE of spider and brown 
crabs declined as an inverse function of 
time and reached a minimum between 
125 to 270 days after initial deploy- 
ment in August 1995. After this period, 
CPUE increased again, although it did 
not attain the rates associated with the 
beginning of the experiment. The fleet 
of twelve pots caught a minimum of 
7.08 spider and 6.06 brown crabs per 
pot per year and killed a minimum 
of 6.06 brown crabs and 0.44 lobsters 
per pot per year. Other species caught 
in the traps included velvet swimming 
crab, lobster, ballan wrasse, dogfish, 
and triggerfish. The pots continued to 
catch animals into the second year of 
the experiment. These results suggest 
that pots have the potential to fish 
for extended periods. The wider use 
of biodegradable escape panels is rec- 
ommended because currently there is 
no national legislation in the UK to 
enforce such escape measures. 
Manuscript accepted 6 October 2000. 
Fish. Bull. 99:247-253 (2001). 
A study of catches in a fleet of "ghost-fishing" pots 
Blaise A. Bullimore 
Philip B. Newman 
Countryside Council for Wales 
Skomer Marine Nature Reserve 
Fisherman's Cottage 
Martin's Haven 
Dyfed, SA62 3BJ, United Kingdom 
Michel J. Kaiser 
School of Ocean Sciences 
University of Wales-Bangor 
Menai Bridge 
Gwynedd, LL59 5EY, United Kingdom 
E-mail address (for M. J Kaiser, contact author): m.j kaiser@bangor ac.uk 
Susansie E. Gilbert 
Kate M. Lock 
Countryside Council for Wales 
Skomer Marine Nature Reserve 
Fisherman's Cottage 
Martin's Haven 
Dyfed, SA62 3BJ, United Kingdom 
Static fishing gear, such as gill and tram- 
mel nets and pots or traps, are consid- 
ered to be highly selective for target 
species. In addition, these gears might 
be considered to be environmentally 
friendly because they cause relatively 
little disturbance of seabed communi- 
ties when compared with towed bot- 
tom-fishing gears (Jennings and Kaiser, 
1998). However, set nets or pots can 
be lost as a result of bad weather, ice 
chafing and cutting mooring ropes, pots 
being snagged on seabed obstructions, 
or pots being inadvertently towed away 
by mobile fishing gears. The lost gear 
may then continue to fish indiscrimi- 
nately, which is a phenomenon known 
as “ghost-fishing.” In contrast with the 
numerous records of bird, reptile, and 
cetacean entanglement in set gears 
(see Dayton et al., 1995 and references 
therein), little is known about the fre- 
quency of static gear loss or for how long 
such gears continue to fish. The pau- 
city of information relating to this phe- 
nomenon results from the reluctance of 
fishermen to report such incidents and 
the difficulty in undertaking long-term 
studies in a realistic manner. 
Estimates of the proportion of nets 
lost from commercial fleets appear to 
be substantial. Approximately 7000 km 
of drift nets (20-30% of the total nets 
set each day) were lost per year in a 
North Pacific fishery (Eisenbud, 1985). 
Considerable numbers of pots are also 
lost each year from some fisheries, al- 
though estimates vary greatly between 
different studies. For example, Kruse 
and Kimker 1 estimated that that in 
1990 and 1991, 31,600 pots per year 
were lost in the North American Bris- 
tol Bay king crab ( Pciralithodes camt- 
schaticus) fishery, whereas Paul et al. 
(1994) and Stevens (1996) estimated 
that losses from the same fishery were 
respectively 20,000 and 7000 pots per 
year. Breen (1987) estimated that 11% 
of the traps used in the Dungeness crab 
Cancer magister fishery of British Co- 
lumbia are lost each year. Modern com- 
1 Kruse, G. H., and A Kimker. 1993. De- 
gradable escape machanisms for pot gear: 
a summary report to the Alaska Board 
of Fisheries. Regional Information Report 
5J93-01, 23 p. Alaska Depart ment of Fish 
and Game (ADFG),211 Mission Rd. Kodiak, 
AK 99615, Alaska. 
