News

Step Forwards in Environmental Protection

03/21/2018

Back in June of 2017, Beverly Kazickas, who is passionately involved with the Nature Conservancy, advocated to add regulatory requirements to modify crab traps so that New York's diamondback terrapins don't drown trapped in them.

Recently, Carl Lobue, Senior Marine Scientist for the Nature Conservancy on Long Island, announced that Commissioner of Department of Environmental Conservation signed off on the certificate of adaption of the regulatory requirements for terrapin excluders in crab traps.

It's a small victory in environmental protection and big one for Long Island's Terrapins.

With the Kazickas Family Foundation's help thousands of excluders had been purchased already.

Here Mr. Lobue excitedly shares the news and gratitude:

"As I think you all know, not too long ago (although it sometimes seems that way), we leaped on chance to make significant strides in protecting, and ultimately rebuilding populations of one of New York’s most unique critters, our only brackish water turtle, the diamond back terrapin, which besides being super charismatic, is an ecologically important component of NY saltmarshes.

The effort had many moving parts, including key negotiations with cantankerous west-end baymen, interception of an alarmingly increasing demand in NYC for capturing and selling these imperiled wild turtles as human food, working with some more amenable baymen on design and distribution of gear that was acceptable to them to modify crab traps to keep terrapins from downing, navigating the regulatory framework at TNC, and on multiple occasions, mobilizing public comments through collaboration with partners and use of social media.

Last year we successfully ended the directed terrapin harvest, and just today (3/16) we received notice that the Commissioner of DEC signed off on the final piece of our conservation puzzle, the certificate of adaption of the regulatory requirements for terrapin excluders in crab traps.

Of note in the attached Assessment of Public Comment, is that DEC received 1,608 public comments on the draft terrapin rule making. Of which only 4 were in opposition to the proposed terrapin excluder provision. An of those four, our ability to offset the cost of excluders for crabbers, and the video we produced with a crabber from Brookhaven https://vimeo.com/226392764, helped to neutralize that opposition. While some crabbers can be….well, crabby… others have privately admitted to me that they simply hated unintentionally killing terrapins and they were very grateful for our investment and that they were installing the excluders in advance of being required to.

Thanks to Wayne for helping communicate with baymen and Amanda for helping communicate with DEC in Albany, Nancy and Marci for allowing our program to be nimble enough to cease this opportunity, and particular thanks to the Kazickas family that funded the purchase of thousands of terrapin excluders.

Together with our friends at Seatuck Environmental Association, we will look to host some sort of formal thank you acknowledgment to the DEC and or Governor Cuomo on moving this provision through – will share details if/as that shapes up.

For some more photos and details on this, check out this article from last summer. http://fireislandandbeyond.com/help-protect-long-islands-terrapins-public-comment-opportunity-through-august-25-2017/"

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