The sun shimmered over calm waters as a small Florida International University research vessel zigzagged slowly across Biscayne Bay on a hot and humid Saturday morning.
Aboard the boat, a team from FIU’s Institute of Environment scanned the horizon in search of a telltale round bob of a buoy. They peered through the shallow water looking for box-like shadows resting on the seagrass below.
Their quest: find and remove "ghost traps."
After nearly an hour, someone finally called out.
“Over there!”
Roughly ten miles east, an orange buoy with the letter “R” surfaced.
The team of five sprung up, with graduate student Nicholas Evan guiding the boat toward the discovery. With a long pole and a tug of muscle, they hauled up a barnacle-covered crab trap.
Inside, a large live crab, lays trapped and confused. The team gently released it back into the water before securing the derelict gear onboard—one of two traps they recovered that Saturday morning.
The FIU researchers were among a dozen boat teams and even more shoreline volunteers who participated in Saturday’s Derelict Trap Rodeo, a biannual environmental cleanup organized by Friends of Biscayne Bay (FOBB).
The goal was to remove abandoned crab and lobster traps that continue to trap and harm marine life long after they’re left behind.
‘The problem arises when these traps are lost’
Ghost traps, also called derelict traps, are often made of heavy duty plastic and are designed to catch crabs, lobsters, or other marine life. But, when they’re lost, forgotten or deliberately abandoned, they remain a danger to marine life.
From July 10 to 19, officials and environmental groups will collect lobster traps during a 10-day closure period. The effort, which requires a permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is meant to limit interference during trap removal.
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“If they (the traps) are being used in a responsible way and they’re being regularly tended to by whoever the fisher happens to be, then the harm that they do is relatively minimal,” said John “Sisyphus” Ricisak, a coastal expert who is part of the Miami-Dade Department of Environment Resources Management (DERM).
“But the problem arises when these traps are lost or intentionally abandoned by their owners, because the traps continue to do what they’re designed to do,” he said.
Ricisak said the material itself also poses a problem.
“Generally speaking, stone crab traps are made of high density polyethylene plastic. Plastic is an enormous worldwide problem in the world’s oceans,” Ricisak said. “Plastic never goes away. It only breaks down, and gets smaller and smaller as it does.”
He said that while ghost traps are an issue across Florida, the scale of the problem differs depending on the region.
“Here in Miami-Dade County, it’s a big problem, but it's a much larger problem down in Monroe County where the lobster fishery, in particular, is very large, much larger than here,” he said. “We’ve been making efforts to remove derelict traps from Biscayne Bay and off shore on the reef track, probably going on 20 years or so now.”
Friendly competition
By the early afternoon, volunteers had pulled 112 traps from the water and removed 782.6 pounds of trash from the bay and its shoreline.
The traps varied in size and weight, some as much as 50 pounds while others were closer to 10.
The event was designed to be a friendly competition. The Miami-Dade County DERM team won first place in the trap collection with their boat team catching 25 traps. At the shoreline, Frank Reyes, known by his nickname "Mangrove Sasquatch," hauled in an impressive 365.8 pounds of trash on his own, earning him first place in that category.
Prizes included an augmented reality artwork created with the use of AI by the artist ‘Disney’. When you scan the QR code attached to the piece with your phone, the artwork animates and comes to life. The event’s T-shirts were designed by a local artist group, Art Sail.
Volunteers at the shoreline and water
Evans shared with WLRN how the FIU research team searched from the water.
“The plan is to just go slow and look for these ghost traps first that are nearby. If we don't see anything … go a little bit further south, maybe towards Turkey Point or out east towards Elliot Key,” he said.
On the water, he explained that sometimes the buoys detach from the traps, and the team must carefully scan the sea floor instead.
“We're pulling up the traps. It's after their season...If they're left, they continue to fish. And that can be detrimental to the critters that are down there.”
Back on shore, Janet Copeland, a Coral Gables resident, picked and collected buckets of plastic.
“Any tiny little bit of plastic, will get into the ocean, will get into the fish, will get into our bodies and they need to take care of their trash properly,” said Copeland. “Boaters need to be cognizant of all this trash that gets caught and then goes, floats out back to the sea.”
She and her husband heard about the event through an email and signed up for their first Rodeo. Though she’s “not a boat person,” Copeland was determined to help from land.
She and her volunteering partner, Tom Carney, were later recognized with third place in the shoreline competition for most trash collected, hauling in more than 50 pounds of debris.
Also back inland was Robert H. Bull, president of the Rotary Club of Pinecrest. He said his biggest concern was plastic pollution.
Bull volunteers monthly across sectors in South Florida, from planting trees to feeding the homeless.
“I am responsible for environmental projects in the tri-county area from Monroe all the way to Broward. I want to motivate people to do something,” he said. “We gotta do something about plastic.”
‘All hands on deck’ to restore the Bay
Laura Reynolds, special advisor for Friends of Biscayne Bay and part of FIU’s Institute of Environment, said the Rodeo is part of a broader effort to restore the bay.
“At one point the aquatic preserve was in such bad shape, we had sewage going into it, we had fish coming up with lesions, and that’s why we protected it 50 years ago,” she said. “So I want people to be inspired by what’s possible and what we can do today to sort of take action and that's what our group is all about — Friends of Biscayne Bay — we work on making sure we do the best things for the bay.”
The Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve Management Plan, currently under review and set to be finalized in October, outlines long-term strategies to improve water quality, increase public education, reduce overuse at boat access points, and expand the removal of marine debris like ghost traps.
Once finalized, it will help guide state and local efforts aimed at restoring the bay’s ecosystem.
“Of course we need people to try to make it stronger and better. So all hands on deck!” said Reynolds.
For those interested in volunteer opportunities, visit the FOBB and DERM websites for more information.
