Troubling signs for lobster industry
MORE THAN 10 years after marine biologist Dr Karl Aiken warned that Jamaica’s lobster stocks were under pressure from overfishing and at risk of being wiped out if remedial action was not taken, evidence is emerging that his assessment then was spot on.
“There is a lot of pressure on the lobster resources of the country, especially the stock that we used to have on Pedro Banks is now much smaller. It’s not about to disappear overnight, but it needs some help,” Aiken had told The Gleaner in January 2014. “While we’ve been concentrating on conch, the lobster resource has been languishing, and is taking a bit of a battering. It’s not extinct, but it is not in as good shape as we thought. It needs some help.”
During the annual closed season, which runs from April 1 to June 30, it is illegal to harvest any lobster at all. Also, under the Fisheries Act of 2018, it is illegal right throughout the year to (a) catch and bring ashore or destroy any berried (pregnant) lobster; (b) catch and bring ashore, or destroy, any spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) of carapace (head) length of less than 7.62 centimetres (three inches). Aiken, who was then a senior lecturer in the Department of Life Sciences, UWI Mona also called for the minimum carapace length to be increased to nine centimetres, which he insisted could make a big difference for the future of Jamaica’s lobster industry. Approving this increase in the minimum size could protect between 55 and 60 per cent of the spawning stock, compared to the 30-40 per cent it is estimated that the current size shelters, he pointed out.
“The industry will die in a few years if we keep this small present size,” Aiken had warned.
A comprehensive lobster abundance survey of the Pedro Banks, Jamaica’s main source of lobster, conducted in 2022, was troubling, to say the least, according to Kimberlee Cooke-Panton, senior research officer in the Capture Fisheries department at the National Fisheries Authority.
“We looked at the entire Pedro Banks, all three cays, spent 39 days out there and we trapped, and what I found was that was within the closed season between April to May, the amount of berried lobsters we found was less than 20 per cent of the total catch. Now, if this is during the closed season, you are thinking that at least 80 per cent of the catch should be berried lobster because it’s the closed season.
“It was telling us that the closed season isn’t actually working, the period that we would have thought that was protecting the mass of the berried lobsters, that it had actually shifted. So now we are looking into expanding the closed season because of the impact of change. Last year we had so many bleaching events because of the sea temperature rise which impacted our oceans and we have to bear these things in mind,” Cooke-Panton told
The Sunday Gleaner last week. In addition, during a survey last year, the overwhelming anecdotal evidence from the captains of industrial fishing vessels was that when they drew their lobster traps during the January-February period, most of what came up was berried lobsters.
“So, they end up having to throw back a lot of the catch. So sometimes the venture doesn’t even make sense because of the financial and physical efforts they put in as most of what they are seeing is berried lobsters. So it makes sense to expand the closed season to February,” she suggested.
An extension of the closed season by at least one month was another recommendation made by Aiken, whose research was instrumental in the shaping of Jamaica’s regulations on lobsters.
“April-May is when the mating season is in full swing, but they are still spawning in July,” he had told The Gleaner.
In the region, The Cayman Islands has one of the longest lobster closed seasons from March 1 to November 31, while in Cuba, which has the largest export market, it runs from February 15 to June 14 and for the British Virgin Islands, the closed season is from July 1 to October 31, and for Belize, from February 15 to June 14. So in most of these countries, the closed season runs for at least four months compared to three months for Jamaica.
Antigua and Barbuda is an exception with its closed season running only from May 1 to June 30, with Cooke-Panton explaining that they produce just over 100 metric tonnes of lobster each year, compared to Jamaica’s annual output of 301 metric tonnes on average annually.
In 2014, Cooke-Panton, whose
‘We looked at the entire Pedro Banks, all three cays, spent 39 days out there and we trapped, and what I found was that was within the closed season between April to May, the amount of berried lobsters we found was less than 20 per cent of the total catch.’
area of expertise is the Caribbean spiny lobster, conducted a study while in Iceland, comparing Jamaica’s industry management practices with those of Cuba and found that the Spanish country had much more stringent regulations. Among the things which stood out was the fact that Cuba has an individual transferable quota, much like what obtains in the local conch industry.
“Also, they have done multiple independent stock assessments and continue to do so. This means they don’t rely on information provided solely by the fishers. They go out and do their own assessments trapping and are able and to gather their data. Even their fishers, when they give information, it is reliable because the industry is state-owned. They are well ahead of the rest of the region.”
The spiny lobster assessment in Cuba is based on substantial available information such as compulsory daily reports of catch and efforts statistics by boats, monthly biological monitoring in several sample points in the lobster distribution areas and monthly weight categories from the processing plants. This is according to a technical report on an overview of the status of the Cuban spiny lobster fishery published in March 2018.
Still, the local industry is doing quite well according to the senior research scientist who pointed to a number of positives, while highlighting an area of concern – the fact that there are no regulations against the harvesting of mega-spawners.
“What I found was that Jamaica was not doing badly. We had measures that looked at protecting the lobster during a closed season. We looked at measures that protect the berried lobsters those which are carrying eggs and this measure is right through the year and we have measures that protect the minimum size, so that will protect all the juvenile stages.
“We don’t have a maximum size, so those are areas that we can address. The number of eggs that a lobster can produce is based on its size, so the larger-size lobsters would produce millions of eggs (mega spawner). A maximum size legislation would protect those mega spawners but, we don’t have that in our legislation. With mega spanner you can get almost up to 12 centimetres in just the head, so you would want to protect anything bigger than that…also on the market most persons don’t want that big a lobster because of the texture of the meat because the larger sizes tend to be rubbery. So even from a market study perspective, the market does not want the mega spawner.”
Still, the National Fisheries Authority is pursuing for legislation that would make it illegal fishers to land lobsters with tar spots. CookePanton explained the rationale.
“I found that when you see any lobster that has a tar spot, at least a month later, it will become a berried lobster. This is one of the things that help us move towards putting it into legislation that tar spot lobsters must now be protected. Because it is still a pregnant female but you just not seeing the eggs as yet. All this time we have been catching lobsters during a critical segment of the production cycle. “
Fishing licences for lobster are issued every two years with, the last issuance taking place in 2023, but when the next renewal session comes around in 2025, there could be some dislocation.
“Right now, we have 20 licences and the NFA is trying not to go beyond that because another study I did looking at 2020 data set was saying that we need to max it out at 16 licences in order to maintain a sustainable lobster fishery,” CookePanton disclosed.