Abstract

The Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is the most valuable fishery in The Bahamas and a key natural resource throughout the wider Caribbean but many stocks are maximally-fished or over-fished. This project aims to establish a lobster nursery facility in The Bahamas as a means to facilitate growth in the blue economy, as well as aid conservation of this fishery resource. The nursery is housed at The Island School’s Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) and is based on the grow-out of wild caught early-stage lobsters (pueruli) that suffer high mortality in the wild. The nursery lobsters can be reared through juvenile stages to either be used for restocking wild stocks or for full-scale aquaculture as a means of sustaining the livelihoods of communities in The Bahamas.