Houses for Lobsters?

I'm doing my thesis on building lobster houses, which are also called casitas cubanas or pesqueros. You are probably asking yourself why should houses be built for lobsters? Lobster houses provide shelter for lobsters and reduce predation. Lobsters forage at night and during the day they find refuge in crevices between rocks or under coral. The problem is that juvenile lobsters like to feed in seagrass and seaweed beds, which do not have many hiding places because the ground is soft. By providing lobsters with man-made shelter, you could increase the number of lobsters that are recruited into the population. Once lobsters reach adult size, they prefer to feed in coral reefs and travel farther. Although juvenile lobsters are the ones that are most often found in lobster houses, commercially-sized lobsters also live in them. Cuba's lobster fishery catches 70% of its lobsters by using lobster houses. Besides increasing recruitment and providing shelter from predation, lobster houses also concentrate lobster populations so that fishermen do not damage reefs while fishing and makes it easy to select commercially-sized lobsters from the lobsters that are living in the lobster house. Caribbean spiny lobsters are also social creatures and juveniles benefit from taking shelter in a house that is defended by a larger lobster.

There are many different types of lobster houses that have been proven to be successful. Some are made out of stacks of concrete blocks and others are made from native palms and ferrocement or tin. There are smaller houses for smaller lobsters and larger houses for larger lobsters, because the smaller the house, the fewer predators can get in.

I just realized that Caribbean spiny lobsters don't have big claws like their relatives from Maine, which is disappointing because those are my favorite part to eat. They are a lot prettier than Maine lobsters though, I couldn't find a picture online to post that gave them justice but I will post one once I take one myself.

Although there are many laws protecting Caribbean spiny lobsters, they are still over-fished in the Dominican Republic because the laws are not enforced. There are restrictions on what size lobsters can be fished, a ban on catching lobsters during the breeding season, and a ban on catching female lobsters that lasts the remainder of the summer. I have a lot of research to do on the lobster fishing communities in Miches and other organizations that have started lobster house projects to find out what type of lobster houses would be best for Miches and where they should be located.