SIGNS OF IMPROVING RECRUITMENT GIVE FLORIDA KEYS HARVESTERS HOPE
Recruitment is once again looking good for spiny lobster in the Florida Keys.
Following two bad years, the lobster harvest improved in 2004-05. Fresh recruits from the Caribbean basin may be one reason for the upswing.
In the 2003-04 season, Florida fishermen harvested 4,268,275 pounds of spiny lobster, down precipitously from record numbers of 7,578,321 in 1999. Harvests increased to 4,830,805 pounds in August 2004 through March 2005, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute data. Fishermen hope the increase means the return of historical average harvests of about 5.8 million pounds for the eight-month season.
"Fishermen are optimistic. Last season was decent," says Doug Gregory, a Sea Grant marine extension agent with the University of Florida who is based in Monroe County. "They are reporting seeing a lot of undersized lobster out there — a good sign that there is recruitment."
Despite the fluctuations in supply, market prices have remained steady over the past five years. The most recent season, which ended in March, saw prices increase about 13 cents a pound over 2003-04, according to the institute’s data, up to $4.55 a pound.
Stock assessments used to guide regulatory policy were completed this year in Florida and the Caribbean. They show regional populations of the clawless crustacean are healthy, he says. The conclusion is "stocks were not overfished," Gregory says." From management perspective, things are looking good."
Biologists are studying the spiny lobster’s life cycle, tracking the lobsters’ travel from coastal Central America and how overfishing in Nicaragua, Honduras and the Caribbean basin affects lobster recruits, Gregory says.
"Nicaragua is implementing major-league arrests on companies that were shipping undersized lobsters, says Florida Keys fisherman Tony Iarocci, who had spent three weeks in the region attending regulatory meetings. "And they are enforcing regulations that say if you are caught with shorts, you lose your fishing license."
Nicaragua has also imposed a closed season on lobster in May and June; both the enforcement and the regulations are designed to boost regional recruitment, Iarocci says.
"It was exciting because the Florida assessments and the Caribbean stock assessments were saying the same thing — the stocks are doing well," Iarocci says.
Ralph Boragine, executive director of the Marathon Key-based Monroe County Commercial Fishermen’s Association, says the stock assessment process in Florida was good for the industry.
"Scientists were able to ask fishermen about the validity of the data. They worked together," Boragine says. "It was the best of both worlds and it may lead to some cooperative research projects."
One of the first cooperative projects between fishermen and researchers may be to build a lobster trap that catches only lobsters of legal size, Boragine says.
A moratorium on an existing trap reduction plan put in place to reduce the overall impact of traps on the ecosystem will continue in the 2005-06 season. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission suspended the trap reduction plan for three years in 2004 because of depressed harvests.
No one really knows precisely why harvests dropped off so sharply, although there are a few theories, Gregory says. A virus that was affecting young lobsters was drawing a lot of concern last year. Another theory is that the lobsters may have bypassed the area in their migrations, or recently been blown back on course.
"Lobsters are very mysterious," Gregory says. "1999 was a banner year, and that occurred two years before the worst season ever. Science shows that lobster migratory patterns may change due to environmental conditions. Hurricanes supposedly have impact on migration of lobsters."
Florida saw four hurricanes make landfall in the first few months of the 2004-05 lobster season, although none hit the Florida Keys directly.
Even during slower seasons, the fishery has not been threatened by competition from imports like many other fisheries are, Boragine says.
"It is not competing against high quantities of cheap product, farmed product, like the shrimpers have to deal with," Boragine says. "The imports actually help to keep us visible in the marketplace."
And while U.S. demand helps to drive the international market for spiny lobster, Australia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Honduras supply more to the global market. Previous slow production years in Florida, the largest U.S. producer of spiny lobster, did not dampen demand either here or abroad.
Keys Fisheries, based in Marathon, which paid fishermen about $4.50 a pound in 2004-05, says spiny lobster demand has remained strong and the supply has improved significantly in the past season.
- Denise Trunk

Lobster Mini-Season