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.
While similar operations exist in Asia and have been attempted in the Caribbean, this project has a community focus on education and development. A novel part of the project incorporates local artisans in the production of collectors using local natural fibres (i.e. sisal, banana, coconut, etc.), as well as training local fishermen to deploy the collectors and harvest pueruli. In this way, any economic benefits that arise will be shared with the local community and scale with the growth of the spiny lobster aquaculture sector. The project will also be replicated on the island of Andros in partnership with the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI). The reared lobsters can be used to replenish stocks in newly created MPAs and generate ‘spillover’ populations for fishers in the surrounding areas.
Literature Cited
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Jones, C.M., Anh, T. L., and Priyambodo, B. (2019) Lobster aquaculture development in Vietnam and Indonesia. In: Radhakrishnan, E. V., Phillips, Bruce F., and Achamveetil, Gopalakrishnan, (eds.) Lobsters: Biology, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Springer, Singapore, pp. 541-570.
Kruczynski, W.L. and P.J. Fletcher (eds.). 2012. Tropical Connections: South Florida’s marine environment. IAN Press, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Cambridge, Maryland. 492 pp.
Power, R., Munro, J.L., Diffenthal, M. and Lane, G. (2005). Preliminary Investigations into the Feasibility of Small Scale, Commercial Aquaculture of Panulirus argus, Based on Collection of Pueruli from the Wild.