Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

Moving towards full utilization and a zero waste seafood industry requires creative and costeffective solutions. For trap fisheries, such as lobster and crab, large quantities of bait arerequired by each vessel to capture the targeted species. Fish waste products leaving seafoodprocessing plants can be utilized to help meet the demand for bait. This pilot project seeks toinvestigate bait use in three California trap fisheries: spiny lobster, Dungeness crab and rock crab, to create an experimental bait product utilizing fish waste to benefit processors, fishers, and the environment. The initial waste-to-bait products were field tested in each fishery, with catch results compared to the traditional baits used by commercial trap fishers. The preliminary results were encouraging and suggest that his approach could create a revenue stream, reduce the burden of expensive bait for fishers, and help the industry move towards full utilization and zero waste.