A Start on Standardized Surveys of Caribbean Spiny Lobster

Measuring a Caribbean spiny lobster in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The lobster is about 15.5 cm from head to the base of its tail. National Park Service.

The Caribbean spiny lobster supports an important fishery in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and managing it sustainably depends on accurate surveys of lobster populations. Those have been hard to come by: past surveys did not run long enough or cover enough area.

In 2019 the National Park Service began a long-term project to monitor Caribbean spiny lobsters in three parks on St. Croix and St. John, to gather population data that can inform future fishing decisions. Agency scientists published early results in the Bulletin of Marine Science in April 2024.

What they found

• Lobster densities were low, and few sampling sites had lobsters at all.
• The lobsters that were found were quite large.

The authors say their method is useful beyond national parks. It could be extended to other parts of the Caribbean or combined with similar fish surveys in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A standardized approach like this would give more reliable results and greatly improve information on the region's lobster populations.

Sources

• The editors of Park Science, "For Sorely Needed Standardized Lobster Surveys, It's a Start," Research Roundup, Park Science 39(1), Winter 2024–25 (January 15, 2025). https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/psv39n1rr_for-sorely-needed-standardized-lobster-surveys-it-s-a-start.htm
• Richter and Feeley (2024), "Developing a Population Assessment for Caribbean Spiny Lobster Panulirus argus in the United States Virgin Islands: Lessons Learned," Bulletin of Marine Science 100. https://doi.org/10.5343/bms.2023.0014
• NPS monitoring protocol: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/675742