Easygrants ID: 27026 NFWF/Legacy Grant Project ID: 0304.11.027026 Fishing for Energy Fund 2011

Easygrants ID: 27026 National Fish and Wildlife Foundation NFWF/Legacy Grant Project ID: 0304.11.027026 Fishing for Energy Fund 2011 - Submit Final Programmatic Report (Activities) Grantee Organization: Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation Project Title: Derelict Gear Assessment and Clean-up in the Gulf of Maine

Project Period 06/01/2011 - 06/30/2014 Award Amount $40,217.00 Matching Contributions $17,661.00 Project Location Description (from Proposal) Coastal waters from Ogunquit, Maine to Newburyport, Massachusetts, including the New Hampshire coastline and the Isles of Shoals.

Project Summary (from Proposal) Detect and remove marine debris from the waters of Maine and New Hampshire. Project will focus on a major in-water lobster trap clean-up and accumulated debris at the Isles of Shoals and nearby beaches.

Summary of Accomplishments This project resulted in the removal of 35 tons of gear from the coastline of New Hampshire and 6 of the Isles of Shoals. It helped us establish protocols for an offshore gear removal effort, streamline these processes and generated awareness and baseline data on debris on several offshore islands. Perhaps most importantly, it built relationships between a non- profit organization, university-based Sea Grant program, the commercial fishing community and resource managers (NH Fish and Game and Maine Marine Patrol) that led to successful cleanups and will pave the way for future successful efforts. We also piloted a lobster band project to try to build relationships with the New Hampshire fishing community.

Lessons Learned 1. It takes time to build the relationships needed between non- profits (Blue Ocean Society), universities (NH Sea Grant), industry (NH commercial fishermen) and natural resource managers (NH Fish and Game and Maine Marine Patrol) to conduct a successful cleanup of derelict gear. 2. Although they are extremely rewarding, cleanups of offshore islands are challenging, difficult to plan and involve many different entities. Even when the best plans are made in advance, the cleanups can be thwarted due to weather or rough seas, especially on islands that have no dock but require landing via skiff. 3. While several successful onshore cleanups were conducted, it took a while to build the relationships needed to conduct an underwater cleanup, which was finally conducted two months after this project had ended. Future proposed cleanups will need to incorporate pay for the conservation officer in their budget if underwater cleanups are to happen. 4. Best management practices to reduce gear loss are worthwhile and some may be effective, but as long as fishing continues there will be a need to clean up derelict gear at least annually, if not more frequently. 5. The lobster bands pilot project was successful in forming a few more connections with lobstermen, but did not have as much support from dealers as anticipated.

Conservation Activities Spring Lobster Trap Cleanups, April 2012, April 2013, May 2014 Progress Measures lbs of fishing gear collected Value at Grant Completion 61100 Conservation Activities Isles of Shoals Cleanup, Summer 2012, 2013, 2014 Progress Measures lbs of fishing gear collected (4020 pounds disposed in FFE bin, additional 4120 pounds disposed in Waste Management bin) Value at Grant Completion 4020 Conservation Activities Spring Lobster Trap Cleanups, April 2012, April 2013, May 2014

The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Progress Measures # of fishermen participating in project (2012: 37; 2013: 38; 2014: 40) Value at Grant Completion 115 Conservation Activities Isles of Shoals Cleanups, Summer 2012, 2013, 2014 Progress Measures # of fishermen participating in project Value at Grant Completion 2 Conservation Activities Conduct cleanups at Isles of Shoals Progress Measures Other (# of public volunteers: 34 adults, 23 children) Value at Grant Completion 57

Final Programmatic Report Narrative

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1. Summary of Accomplishments In four to five sentences, provide a brief summary of the project’s key accomplishments and outcomes that were observed or measured.

This project resulted in the removal of 35 tons of gear from the coastline of New Hampshire and 6 of the Isles of Shoals. It helped us establish protocols for an offshore gear removal effort, streamline these processes and generated awareness and baseline data on debris on several offshore islands. Perhaps most importantly, it built relationships between a non-profit organization, university-based Sea Grant program, the commercial fishing community and resource managers (NH Fish and Game and Maine Marine Patrol) that led to successful cleanups and will pave the way for future successful efforts.

2. Project Activities & Outcomes

Activities  Describe the primary activities conducted during this grant and explain any discrepancies between the activities conducted from those that were proposed.

1. Work with fishermen to identify and retrieve gear on shore and at sea, wherever safe and legal, including providing disposal bins for spring lobster trap cleanup, cleaning up DFG on the Isles of Shoals, and removing gear from the water when possible: a. Coordinate and provide disposal bins for the annual spring lobster trap cleanup in April 2012 and 2013 to remove lobster traps and associated gear from the shoreline. Bins will be provided in Rye, NH. i. Bins were provided for spring trap cleanup in May 2012. 1. A total of 4.17 tons were collected. 1 container of combustibles equaling 3.41 tons was collected and transported to Covanta; another container filled with metal equaled .76 tons (this was transported to Schnitzer) ii. Bins were provided for spring trap cleanup in May 2013. Twenty tons of gear were collected in bins placed in Rye and Hampton, NH. iii. Due to leftover money for bins, the grant was extended and a third spring trap cleanup was conducted in May 2014. During this cleanup, 6.38 tons of gear were collected. iv. In total, 30.55 tons of gear was collected during the spring trap cleanups. v. The cleanups were publicized via a press release sent out by NH Fish and Game, our NH marine debris blog at nhmarinedebris.blogspot.com, word-of-mouth at our monthly beach cleanups and volunteer trainings, public programs, our web site and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (new in 2014). vi. A portion of this project that ended up being outside of the proposed work was that we conducted work to build relationships with the New Hampshire fishing community by purchasing lobster bands with NHSeafood.com/bands printed on them and distributing them to 5 local fishermen. This was to encourage and recognize fishermen for participating in marine debris projects while improving the market for local, responsibly harvested lobsters. The web page NHSeafood.com/bands was created as a way to highlight the fishermen who participated as well as to educate consumers about both sustainably harvested lobsters in NH and marine debris. This side project was also a good way to establish new relationships with several new lobstermen which is key to the continuation of derelict gear removal.

b. TheIdentify views and and conclusions clean up contained derelict ingear this documenton the Isles are those of Shoals. of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

i. Cleanups were conducted from June-September 2012 at Appledore Island (twice), Star Island, and White and Seavey Islands (twice). Approximately 94 lobster traps were removed, but were not disposed in a FFE bin due to miscommunication regarding bin delivery when we needed it. Transportation for cleanup staff and volunteers and hauling of derelict gear was provided by a fisherman based in Rye, NH. ii. Cleanups were conducted from May-September 2013 at Star Island (3 times), Appledore Island (twice), White Island, Seavey Island, Smuttynose Island and Malaga Island. A total of 1.11 tons of debris were collected, including .85 tons of derelict traps, rope and buoys removed from Appledore Island. iii. Since the grant was extended, we also did additional cleanups at the Isles of Shoals in 2014. Cleanups were conducted at Star Island (5/14/14), Appledore Island (5/20/14), Smuttynose Island (5/29/14) and White Island (6/16/14), which resulted in the removal of 0.90 tons of marine debris, including 185 lobster traps/trap pieces, 105 buoys and 78 pieces of rope, 2 of which were more than 100 feet long. iv. The total debris removed at Isles of Shoals and disposed in a FFE amounted to 2.01 tons. An additional 2.06 tons were disposed of in a Waste Management bin in 2012 due to difficulty in obtaining a FFE bin. c. Remove derelict fishing gear in the presence of NH Fish and Game Conservation Officer. i. Gear at the Isles of Shoals and during the spring trap cleanups was removed in the presence of a NH Fish and Game officer, Maine Marine Patrol officer, or with their written or verbal permission. ii. A planning meeting was held 8/16/12 with NH Fish and Game and NH Marine Patrol regarding recovery of derelict gear. At the time, NHFG and NHMP committed to providing an officer for 1 day per year for supervision of cleanup, and suggested we target large accumulations of gear, rather than smaller accumulations or individual traps. iii. While this was not conducted within the grant period, relationships and results built during this project led to a successful underwater lobster trap cleanup conducted in August 2014 in partnership with a local fisherman, NH Fish and Game and World Animal Protection. Twenty- four traps were removed from an area near the Isles of Shoals. Nineteen were still fishable and returned to their owner, the rest were disposed in a Northeast Recycling bin.

d. Conduct a cleanup of debris accumulation points at the Isles of Shoals, 9 islands 5 miles off the coast of ME/NH. This includes: i. Isles of Shoals cleanup results are detailed in item 1b above.

2. Concentrate project information, data and reports into a web site, www.nhmarinedebris.org, that has already been created and is hosted at the UNH Cooperative Extension. a. Blog entries regarding the project were posted at nhmarinedebris.blogspot.com. Information on the project was also posted on nhmarinedebris.org, blueoceansociety.org and nhseafood.com.

3. Publicize project results (throughout project) a. Project has been publicized via media releases, social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), press releases and press coverage, BOS newsletters, blueoceansociety.org and nhseafood.com. b. Project was also presented via two spoken presentations and posters at a marine debris conference hosted by World Society for Protection of Animals in December 2011.

Outcomes  Describe progress towards achieving the project outcomes as proposed. and briefly explain any discrepancies between your results compared to what was anticipated.

Cleanups were conducted along the coast (spring trap cleanup) and on the Isles of Shoals as planned. For the Isles of Shoals cleanups, we didn’t get the response from the student volunteers that we had anticipated. Managers on the islands have been more than happy to have us bring our own staff and volunteers out to the islands to do a cleanup, and we’ve been successful in arranging group cleanups on Star Island with conference participants and student field trips, but have not had staff on the islands undertake regular stewardship of marine debris cleanups due to their commitments to other activities. An exception is that staff on Appledore Island did pile up derelict The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

gear during a cleanup of the island in 2014 and Shoals Marine Lab grounds as they got ready to open up for the season, and notified us where the gear was so that we could document and remove it, and this happened after a couple successful cleanups of the island. So we expect this relationship and marine debris-related work on the island to grow in the coming years.

Integrating data into our project web site is something we are still struggling with, largely because our data collection resulted in the recording of every piece of debris picked up, rather than just the items on data cards as we traditionally do at cleanups. The raw data is currently in spreadsheet form and is available upon request.

We also overestimated the amount of funds we’d need for derelict gear bins, as the FFE bin vendor changed during the project and Northeast Recycling’s prices came in under what was originally estimated. Consequently, we were able to purchase the lobster bands described above and conduct additional spring trap and Isles of Shoals cleanups.

Regarding the amount of gear removed, we estimated that we’d remove at least 40 tons of gear over the original two years of the project. In total, we removed 34.62 tons of gear. Gear collected during the spring trap cleanup seems largely dependent on winter storm action, which can influence the amount of gear that washes ashore and whether gear stays in the water or gets washed up.

 Provide any further information (such as unexpected outcomes) important for understanding project activities and outcome results.

This project took large steps in building relationships among the entities involved in derelict gear work in this area, although relationships progressed more slowly than we had initially anticipated. We are hopeful that the work conducted largely as a result of this project has built a solid foundation for future work in this area, including more targeted efforts at underwater gear documentation and retrieval.

3. Lessons Learned Describe the key lessons learned from this project, such as the least and most effective conservation practices or notable aspects of the project’s methods, monitoring, or results. How could other conservation organizations adapt similar strategies to build upon some of these key lessons about what worked best and what did not?

Key lessons learned from this project:  Not surprisingly, it takes time to build the relationships needed between non-profits (Blue Ocean Society), universities (NH Sea Grant), industry (NH commercial fishermen) and natural resource managers (NH Fish and Game and Maine Marine Patrol) to conduct a successful cleanup.  Although they are extremely rewarding, cleanups of offshore islands are challenging, difficult to plan and involve many different entities. Even when the best plans are made in advance, the cleanups can be thwarted due to weather or rough seas, especially on islands that have no dock but require landing via skiff. Having a skiff accessible, ideal weather and sea conditions, and availability of law enforcement officers were the factors most important to a successful island cleanup.  While several successful onshore cleanups were conducted, it took a while to build the relationships needed to conduct an underwater cleanup, which was finally conducted two months after this project had ended. While overseeing underwater cleanups is under the purview of a NH Fish and Game officer’s regular duties, it was not something that NH Fish and Game was able to commit to during this project’s time period. The underwater trap cleanup that eventually happened was able to happen after several successful, responsibly-conducted cleanups during this project, and with dedication of funds (secured through World Animal Protection) to pay the officer’s overtime. Future proposed cleanups will need to incorporate pay for the conservation officer in their budget if underwater cleanups are to happen.  Similar to the bullet points above, it takes more than a one-time cleanup event to build relationships. Involving the same partners over time and building referrals from them can build the relationships necessary that pave the way for future efforts.  While our initial cleanups at the Isles of Shoals gave us a “clean slate” and allowed us to come up with a baseline of data on debris on the islands, debris still constantly accumulates on the islands. The same is true for the mainland trap cleanups. Best management practices to reduce gear loss are worthwhile and

some may be effective, but as long as fishing continues there will be a need to clean up derelict gear at least annually, if not more frequently.  The lobster bands pilot project was successful in forming a few more connections with lobstermen. While they were willing to help with lobster trap clean ups by providing boat time and rides to the islands, it could only occur when they were not going fishing which made planning for these cleanups very difficult. Additionally, while the lobstermen and restaurants buying NH Fresh and Local lobsters were willing to participate, the dealers decided it was not worth their effort to participate in the project and some actually asked their fishermen to stop using the bands. Since the relationship between lobsterman and his dealer is incredibly important, these lobstermen stopped using the bands in the 2014 season. However, one lobsterman continues to use the bands during direct sales off his boat.

4. Dissemination Briefly identify any dissemination of project results and/or lessons learned to external audiences, such as the public or other conservation organizations. Specifically outline any management uptake and/or actions resulting from the project and describe the direct impacts of any capacity building activities.

 Information about this project was publicized via media releases, social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), press releases and press coverage, BOS newsletters, blueoceansociety.org and nhseafood.com. Project videos and information were also displayed on a flatscreen TV at BOS’s Blue Ocean Discovery Center in Hampton Beach (which had 15,000+ visitors in summer 2014) and disseminated verbally at BOS programs, including aboard whale watch boats out of Rye, NH, Newburyport, MA and Gloucester, MA, at school programs and fairs and festivals BOS attended.  Press releases, etc. are included in our Uploads.

5. Project Documents Include in your final programmatic report, via the Uploads section of this task, the following:

 2-10 representative photos from the project. Photos need to have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi;  Report publications, Power Point (or other) presentations, GIS data, brochures, videos, outreach tools, press releases, media coverage;  Any project deliverables per the terms of your grant agreement.

POSTING OF FINAL REPORT: This report and attached project documents may be shared by the Foundation and any Funding Source for the Project via their respective websites. In the event that the Recipient intends to claim that its final report or project documents contains material that does not have to be posted on such websites because it is protected from disclosure by statutory or regulatory provisions, the Recipient shall clearly mark all such potentially protected materials as “PROTECTED” and provide an explanation and complete citation to the statutory or regulatory source for such protection.