Abandoned Crab Trap Program - San Antonio Bay Partnership

In 2017 San Antonio Bay Partnership (SABP) began participating Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Abandoned Crab Trap Removal Program to help clean the bays of abandoned crab traps. Now, each February during the crabbing closure period, SABP organizes the volunteer efforts in and around Espiritu Santo and San Antonio Bays. We also work with partnering organizations to clean up surrounding bay systems including:

With the help of donating organizations and grants, SABP provides supplies, training and an after party. On the first Friday of the closure period, weather permitting, a reconnaissance plane flies the bays a volunteer over the bays who marks the location of abandoned crab traps in a phone app. Our boat volunteers are assigned to cover specific areas and use the phone app to see the location of traps marked by aerial recon and to document all traps they remove. Trap owner information and entrapped critters are recorded. Analysis of this data has helped to inform us about the reasons for trap dereliction and potential solutions.