Abstract

The Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) is responsible for the conservation and management of the Island’s natural resources, including the fishery resources. The DNER’s Commercial Fisheries Statistics Program (CFSP) collects and analyzes the dependent fisheries data. The CFSP has been collecting data since 1971. During the 1980s, Puerto Rico’s commercial fishery resources had shown overfishing symptoms (e.g. decrease in landings pounds, change in catch composition, decrease in the size of some important species).\Spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, is a very valuable exploited marine crustacean in the shallow water of the Caribbean Islands. During the 1950s, the fishery and economic of the spiny lobster started to increase. Spiny lobster has been the most important shellfish by landed weight and price per pound in Puerto Rico’s fishery since the 1970s to 2001. Spiny lobster showed symptoms of overfishing during the 1980s. Since 1985, then the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC) and the DNER have regulations to protect the spiny lobster. These include a minimum legal size (MLS) of 89 mm carapace length (CL), forbidden to take egg-bearing females, forbidden the use of gaff to catch lobsters, and all spiny lobster must be landed whole. Despite these fishing regulations, CFSP personnel observed that very little or no enforcement occurred until 1995. During 1989 - 1991, more than 50% of the spiny lobsters were caught before reaching the MLS. Since 1995, the DNER’s rangers started to enforce the spiny lobster regulations, with the result that during 1998, only 24% were caught before MLS.\The objective of this study is to describe the fishery of the spiny lobster thru the data collected by the CFSP (landings and biostatistics data) during 1988 - 2001. Length frequency distributions (LFD) of this species by years, fish traps and SCUBA diving have been analyzed.

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