Bionic Lobster Commercial

I came upon this video over the summer and was luckily able to find it again. : ) This lobster lost his right arm in an unfortanate fishing accident and came across a leatherman laying on the seafloor. Caribbean Spiny Lobsters don't have claws but maybe they could make an investment in some leathermans!

Lobster Houses Illegal in Florida Keys

I found these two videos on the use of lobster houses in Florida, which is illegal. Divers dump all kinds of material into the ocean in order to attract lobsters and have been causing damage to the environment and is resulting in overfishing. According to the video though they have been very successful and have been bringing more lobster than the fishers that use traps. There are some fishers that are licensed to create artificial reefs by dumping materials but they have to be approved beforehand to make sure that the area where the dumping occurs will not be damaged and the materials will not disintegrate and cause damage to the environment.

I think that lobster houses should be regulated to make sure that they are made out of approved materials and put in the proper locations to reduce environmental impact, but I'm not convinced that they should be completely banned. The fishers that use traps feel threatened because the lobster houses are more effective and their fishing method is harmful to the environment as well. When there is a major storm, their traps get thrown about reefs causing damage and the fishers leave juvenile lobsters, called "shorts," in their traps to attract other lobsters. This results in a significant loss in the number of juveniles in this fishery because they usually get eaten by other lobsters or fish or die due to starvation.

Shark Fishing

WARNING!

This post may contain images, videos, and information that may be alarming for those that are ecologically-conscious and/or squeamish.

This Sunday I had an extraordinary experience. I went shark fishing with Fran, Luis, and Paul. I do not know how long Fran has been shark fishing, but below is a photo of Fran with the biggest shark that he has ever caught. It has to be over 15 years old. He says that he is the only shark fisher in Miches.

While I was in Miches over the summer I wasn't aware of shark fishing occurring, which could be because Fran didn't trust me or the others working for ESSEG, but when I came back over winter break, Paul told me that Fran goes shark fishing quite often and had offered to take him out. He sets out nets to catch enough rays and other fish to use as bait, which he puts on lines with a giant hook on the end and a large buoy. There is a row of 5 bouys on one line. This time he caught 4 sharks on 5 lines.

Fran sells the entire shark: its fins, the meat, the shark oil, and the teeth. The fins are sold to Chinamen who come all the way to Miches to buy the fins from him for 800 pesos ( $22) a pound. The Chinese use them to make shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy and has been growing in popularity as people are able to afford it. In most other locations where sharks ar caught for its fins, it's finned alive and thrown over board to slowly die. So one upside about shark fishing in Miches is that almost everything is used. The meat is sold to the cities and the fishers say that it tastes delicious. The shark oil is used locally for curing respiratory aliments. Over the summer, one of the kids in Los Mameyes was sick so they gave him a botella made from shark liver oil, honey, and some other herbs to drink. I was feeling under the weather as well and they let me try some. It tasted like honey. They also use the shark's teeth to make necklaces and other jewelry. Fran's wife said that she had a necklace made from shark's teeth.

Here is one of the four tiger sharks that were caught. When they were cleaned, together they all weighed 480 pounds. Fran said that sometimes they only catch one shark that weighs over 500 pounds. When sharks get that big, they can't load it into the boat and drag it alongside it. They would rathe rhave larger sharks than smaller sharks. For these sharks, they got 2,000-3,000 pesos for each, which is around US$ 56-83.

Here's a shark that got its head bitten by another shark after the fishers left it out on the line to die.

Hooked

This shark was a little "guapo," the Dominican word for agressive, and had to be tied down with a line.

Shark fishing footage.

Shark fishing is not sustainable and is one more reason why I hope the lobster house project is successful. You are fishing at the top of the food chain, which disrupts the entire balance of the ecosystem, and it is unhealthy to consume shark meat because it is high in mercury since it is so high in the food chain. I also do not like that they catch spotted eagle rays, which are listed as not threatened by the IUCN, but would be a thrill for a tourist to see while snorkeling. They are truly magnificant fish. I don't know why they can't use other types of fish or even rotten meat from the butcher. It is very profitable though and as Fran said, shark fishing is is "divertido" (fun) compared to other kinds of fishing. I imagine he takes pride in being able to kill these top predators of the ocean. One aspect of this experience that gave me hope is that there are enough sharks out there in order to be able to shark fish. This means that the ecosystem is very healthy because the more top predators there are, the less effect fishing has had on the ecosystem. This has been shown by the research conducted at the Palmyra atoll, an isolated island that has never had extenisive fisheries and 56% of its total fish biomass is top predators. I hope that shark fishing will be stopped before the sharks are fished out.

As for the legality of shark fishing, it is legal to fish for sharks besides the basking shark, the great white, and the whale shark. The only state in the US in which shark fishing is illegal is Hawaii but the US has toughened its laws so that there shark finning is illegal, meaning that the entire shark must be kept and shark fins can still be traded and sold in restaurants. However, more than 80 other countries are suppliers to the shark fin market in Hong Kong, which is stated by this article, and one kilo (2.2 pounds) of shark fin can go for US$ 120. The demand for shark fins is not going to disappear any time soon. It is not on the same level as blue fin tuna and Japan because there are many different species and sharks will be likely to be protected by CITES in the future because they are charismatic and not as tasty. What worries me is that there are so many species that can be fished to meet the shark fin demand, which means that fishers can switch to other species once one has been made illegal, causing a total collapse of all shark populations. A total ban on shark fishing and the sale of shark fins should be issued before this happens.

Fishing with Fran

Yesterday Paul and I woke up at 7 to be at Fran’s by 8 to go with him to set out his “transmayos” (pronounced tra-my-os) so that we could check the lobster houses and do some snorkeling. It was nice to be back. : ) I had stopped by the previous afternoon to say hi and to ask if we could go out with him . I was able to talk to Fran, Juan, and the man who buys the fish. They all told me that that day was the first day in a month that the fishermen had been able to go out fishing because there had been such bad weather. A breeze from the north had made fishing nearly impossible. I also think they didn’t go out because it was the holiday season and during that time is one big party.

We arrived at los Mameyes exactly at 8 but didn’t end up leaving until 9:15, which was typical Dominican time. I got to try some “pan de coco,” coconut bread, made by a woman I met over the summer that was delicious. It also had cardamom in it. I also made friends with Fran’s new five month old puppy named Terry.

This time I didn’t want to use a wet suit because I didn’t have any weights and knew that if I used one, I would be fighting to stay underwater. It did make the trip a little chilly though. My ears were not used to popping and my breath hold was less than normal because I hadn’t been free diving in three months. With the help of another fisherman and his thirteen year old son, Fran put out three nets, which I was surprised to notice had holes that were as large as my hand. Most fishermen use nets with holes that are only three centimeters wide and are illegal because they catch juvenile fish. Perhaps he did it because we were with us or because he was going for larger prey.

I snorkeled twice, once around the second site where we put the lobster houses while I was here over the summer and another time around Media Luna. We checked three houses and they did not have any lobsters, but there was a crab under them. I wasn’t able to stay down there long enough to lift them up so it was a good thing that Paul was there with me. The next day my breath hold was a lot better and my ears became used to equalizing again, but there were no lobster houses to check. We also checked one of the houses made from tin roofing that they had built three weeks ago and it didn’t have any lobsters in it either. However I did find a lobster underneath a rock with its antennae sticking out not 10 meters from one of the old lobster houses. It looked almost of legal size as well; too bad I didn’t have a net or a camera at least. Our Media Luna dive was fantastic! I saw a box fish underneath a rock that was twice as large as my head. Sadly he was shy and we didn’t get a good picture of it. Media Luna is full of caves and tunnels that are waiting to be explored. Paul promised to bring his torches next time.

The next day we arrived at seven in the morning to go with Fran to bring his nets back in. When we got there, he was still sleeping, but we ended up leaving at 8. We checked the first two nets with no luck and they left them out for another day. However, we could tell that the third net by Media Luna had something because the buoys were sunk. I could see the white entangled shape of a shark’s belly on the bottom of the ocean from the boat. Paul kitted up and went over board to check it out. I followed. The shark was dead but on either side of it were two beautiful spotted eagle rays that were still struggling. Paul helped them get the fish on board and I occupied myself with some snorkeling. I saw three small great barracudas, two goat fish, and some other reef fish. It wasn’t a long snorkel and then we got on the boat to go back to shore. They started to cut up the shark, which was a juvenile white shark, throwing the head, innards, and fins over board. I told the fishermen that the Chinese use the fins to make soup and that they pay a lot of money for them. They seemed to already know. The rays they left to die before cutting them up, saying they were going to use them for shark bait. Fran sets out lines in the ocean loaded with bait to attract sharks, sometimes using manta rays. Hopefully we will get to go with him to fish for sharks in a few days, which would make for an interesting experience. Fran brought up a few of his “corazones” (nasas that are shaped like a heart) and a “cuadra” (a nasa that is shaped like a square), but only had a few small reef fish to show for it. He took off the buoys and sunk them to prevent people from finding them. One of the fish was a puffer fish and when they put it into a bucket of water, it puffed up. They tossed it overboard and it floated. They said it would eventually deflate and swim away. I know it was cruel but it was cool to see the fish puff up like that. In Spanish the fish is called “pez globo,” or globe fish. He also caught three Nassau groupers, which are endangered if I remember correctly. The fishermen told us that they are used for soup. They can be identified by the stripe shaped like a tuning fork on their foreheads. His catch also consisted of some groupers and two trigger fish. The other fisherman skinned the triggerfish and cut out the eyes to make it ready to cook and cut slices in them to cook them “a la plancha,” on the grill.

Here's the Nassau grouper:

The puffer fish:
And one of the corazones:
Paul lifting up one of the houses we made over the summer.

I don’t agree with their fishing methods, but I think it’s important to actually learn how it’s done in order to help change it. Tourists would spend a significant amount of money to see manta rays or eagle rays and it’s sad that they are killing them just to use them as bait because they could have easily been untangled and freed. However, there are no tourists and the lobster houses haven’t had much success and wouldn’t be able to provide income for all of the fishermen at least for a few years.

Six Days, Seven Nights: Santo Domingo, Monte Cristi, and Santiago

Thomas and I arrived in Santo Domingo on the 29th and stayed at Hostel Nòmadas, my favorite hostel. They always make sure that I´m taken care of no matter what. Their rooms are clean and comfortable too, with hot water, air conditioning, and a fridge for only $40. We stayed there until the third and I was able to give Thomas an insider´s tour of Santo Domingo with Wilman´s help. I think we ended up staying too long in Santo Domingo and may have even had a chance to visit Miches if we had planned better, but I think we both still had fun. Then we took a Caribe Tours bus to Monte Cristi, which only ended up being a 4 and a half hour trip when it was supposed to take over 6 hours. It was because the roads were good. I didn´t really like Monte Cristi that much because there wasn´t much to do so we headed to Santiago for a night after I had accomplished all of my lobster house duties. Santiago was interesting. We went to the Centro Leon, which is a museum dedicated to the history of the DR. We were the only people in there besides three others. It was the most deserted museum that I have ever been in. They had some interesting exhibits though. Then we went to the Monument in the center of town and had to pay to get to the top and take pictures. It had a fantastic view of Santiago. I liked Santiago. Thomas described it like Boston compared to New York. It is smaller, cleaner, and the people are better educated and have a higher income. It´s carro pùblico system is also a lot easier to understand because there are only a few main roads, making it difficult to take the wrong route. The photos shown here are a little out of order because blogger.com can be difficult sometimes, especially for someone as technologically-uninclined as I am.

This is a photo of Thomas on top of the hill we hiked in Monte Cristi. I love this photo, despite what he says. :P

This is a photo of Rinconcito, monastery ruins where they have live music ever Sunday night. People start setting up their chairs around five and the show starts at 7. The entire hillside is covered with people. It is my favorite event to go to in Santo Domingo.

Here is a photo of the Faro de Colòn (Christopher Columbus´s lighthouse), which is called by one tourist ¨an architectural atrocity¨. In the book I read over the summer about the history of the Dominican Republic, ¨Why the Cocks Fight,¨ it said that millions of dollars were spent to build it and when they turned it on for the first time, the entire city of Santo Domingo lost power. Now they only turn it on during Columbus day and it shots a light in the form of a giant cross into the sky. It is a complete waste of money.

Here is a photo inside Los Tres Ojos, the system of caves outside of Santo Domingo. It was really cool. This cave is open to the air and you can hear merengue and bachata music drifting down from the guardhouse. In order to get to it you have to use a ferry through the caves that costs 20 pesos.
Here is a photo of the view from the hill we hiked in Monte Cristi. That mountain is called ¨El Morro¨or the plateau. We wanted to hike it but it is a reserve so it is not allowed.

Here is a photo of the guagua we took to the airport outside of Santo Domingo. Darien had left my phone at the Europecar office so that I could use it while I was in the capital and in Monte Cristi. Unfortunately I didn´t know it was there when I got off the plane so had to go back to the airport. Usually it is a $30-40 cab ride each way. Since I didn´t want to pay that hefty price, which was actually more than the phone cost, I combined tourism with business and along the way was able to introduce Thomas to the guagua system, a motoconcho ride, gave him a tour of La Caleta park, went to Los Tres Ojos, and the Faro de Colòn. I also was able to prove that you could get to the airport without paying a taxi and we ended up only paying 150 pesos for the two of us. We took the guagua to Boca Chica from around Parque Enriquillo that cost 90 peso and they dropped us off about 1.5 km to the airport. The we took a motoconcho the rest of the way for 60 pesos. On the way back we took a cab ride to Los Tres Ojos and I was able to talk the driver down to 500 pesos and we walked all the way back to Zona Colonial, but did some sight-seeing along the way.

On New Year´s Eve we hung out with Wilman and his friends Sandy and Yimmy. We went to Yimmy´s house, where were were introduced to canasta. Then we went to Yimmy´s aunt´s house for a delicious dinner and some dancing. After a few drinks I was able to convince them to take me to the Malecon, the road by the ocean, where there was fireworks, live music, and a live broadcast from NYC! It looked a lot colder there than it was in the DR. This is a photo that Thomas took of Wilman and I dancing. I think that it came out looking pretty cool!
Here is a photo of all of us before we went to go to Yimmy´s aunt´s house (except for Thomas because he is taking the picture). In order from left to right is Yimmy, Sandy, me, and Wilman.
On our way back from visiting the food market on the 27th de Febrero (the Dominican Republic´s Independence Day, which is also Thomas´s birthday!), we came across Chinatown! I was excited to see it because it is rare to see Asians or any foreigner for that matter in the Dominican Republic that are not tourists. This is a photo of him with the statue of the Chinese immigrant. :)

Monte Cristi Interview

I'm back in the DR! Thomas and I arrived on the 28th of December. He only stayed for a week but I'm here until the 18th of January. The main reason why I came back was to have the chance to visit Monte Cristi, which has had a lobster house project in operation for two years and it has been very successful. I have been in contact with the operator, Angel, since the beginning of the summer and he has been very helpful in providing me with information concerning their project and on lobster fishing in general. On Monday Thomas and I woke up early and caught the got the 7:30 bus to Monte Cristi from Santo Domingo. When we got there Angel was not there, but he gave me the number of a friend if I needed any help and told us to stay in Chic Hotel.

The next morning we had breakfast with Angel and I was able to ask him some questions about the project. Then Simon, the fisherman who is most involved with the project came and I was able to ask him some more questions and he agreed to take us out to see the lobster houses that were in front of Cayo Cabra, the houses that were in the shallow water. In the afternoon we went for a walk to El Morro, which is We had dinner with Angel that night and decided to head to Santiago because the following day was Thomas’s last in the country and we had done everything that we had to do in Monte Cristi. Here is the list of questions that I had answered:

House Characteristics

1. How deep are the houses?

10 of them are 3 meters deep and the other 80 are 10-15 meters deep.

2. How far apart are the houses?

The ones that are deeper are 10 meters a part and the ones that are shallower are 40-50 meters apart.

3. What substrate are the houses located on?

The shallower ones are on seagrass beds on top of the seagrass and the deeper ones are located in the blancos, which are the sand patches in the seagrass.

4. Are they oriented with the current?

They are diagonal to the current.

5. What is their orientation in regard to natural refuges?

There is no specific orientation. The lobster houses in the shallows that I visited were five meters away from a pile of rocks which were filled with fish, lion fish, and juvenile lobsters, which were backed up into the crevices with their antennae sticking out. In the 2 meter long pile there were at least 10 lobsters.

Maybe they should put more rocks into the ocean for the juvenile lobsters and for other sea life because around that area with the rocks everything was barren besides it.

6. Are they placed on flat surfaces?

As far as I know.

7. Are the houses built using the same materials and dimensions as ReefCheck?

They are made from ferrocement but they use a different design. The houses are 22 cm tall, taller than the ReefCheck houses, which are 15 cm, in order to attract larger lobsters. The sides are tilted and there is an extended edge, both which prevent the house from sinking into the mud. They are also smaller, measuring 1x1 meters squared. The houses used by ReefCheck are 1.3 x 1.6 meters squared.

Angel said that the fishermen in Punta Allen use at least five different designs depending on where the lobster houses are placed and on what substrate. The design that they are using is for sandy bottoms, which is what we have in Miches. The design that has right angles that we are currently using is for hard bottoms so the houses may end up sinking into the sand.

Management Concerns

1. Is a net or jamo used to catch the lobsters? And how is it used? What are the dimensions?

They use a net that is a 2-3 feet wide and take out all of the lobsters, throwing back the ones that are juveniles.

2. Are compressors used to reach the houses?

The shallow houses can be free dived but the deeper houses are reached using a compressor.

3. How many houses are active right now?

They have 90 houses and 200 more are already built and all that is needed is permission from the environmental ministry.

4. How many houses does each fisherman receive?

There is currently no ownership.

5. Are there TURFS/campos?

There are plans to make TURFs and they are calling them "parcelos."

6. How many fishermen are there?

There are around 80 that are involved in a cooperative and there are six fishermen who are currently interested in the lobster houses, only one of which is currently active.

7. How often are the lobster houses checked?

The houses are checked around once a month.

8. At what time are the lobster houses checked?

Not any specific time that I know of.

9. How long does it take for the fishermen to check their houses?

Unknown

10. What is the name of the town that the project is in?

Monte Cristi, the capital of the Monte Cristi province in the northwest of the country.

11. Is the town hard to get to?

Caribe Tours offers a bus service there from Santo Domingo that takes approximately 6 hours (less if the road conditions are good and there is no traffic) and it is 2 hours from Santiago. The roads deteriorate after Santiago but are not as bad as the roads from San Pedro de Macoris to Miches because it is flat.

12. Does it receive a lot of tourists? If so, where do those tourists come from?

According to Angel, there are not a lot of tourists and we did not see any.

There was one tourist shop by the water and a woman asked us if we wanted to pay to take a boat out to Cayo Cabra, which is called that because it used to have goats on it. It also has an old lighthouse that is no longer working and the middle of the island looks like it has a manmade pool of some sort. They also offered tours to Los Siete Hermanos and another excursion. There are a significant amount of nice restaurants, which cater towards the rich Dominicans that go there on vacation. However, we did run into a group of forty volunteers for the local orphanage, which as 50 orphans.

There are whales that come to breed in the area.

There are also a significant amount of centuries-old shipwrecks in the area around Cayo Cabra and there is an archaeological institute that has been cataloging. Possibly may be good for diving.

The city was a stop over to Dajabón, which is a bordertown with Haiti and every Monday and Friday Haitians cross the border for free on the “Friendship Bridge” and sell discount brand name clothing in bulk to Dominicans, who bring food and other household items for the Haitians to buy in bulk.

"El Morro" is a plateau that looms over the city and shelters a beautiful beach. There is a small hill that you can climb for a fantastic view of the beach, the shadows of manatees grazing on the seagrass, the Haitian mountains, Cayo Cabra, and Los Siete Hermanos in the distance when the sky is clear.

13. Do the lobster fishermen measure the lobsters?

No.

14. If they harvest a lobster that is undersized or have eggs, do they throw it back?

Using the houses yes, but normally no.

They have found that when they leave a few lobsters in the place where they harvest the lobsters, there will be more for when they come back, which is because the lobsters release chemical cues to tell other lobsters where there is good shelter. They also make clicking noises according to Paul.

15. Is their catch recorded by CODOPESCA?

Usually, but not all of it is recorded all of the time, same as in Miches.

16. Is there enforcement of the veda in Monte Cristi? Lobster sizes? Berried females?

There is enforcement of the veda, but that is it. The small lobsters are sold and those that buy them chop them up and put them in dishes like paella.

17. What is the relationship between the company and the fishermen? Do they get paid by how many lobsters they catch?

The details haven’t been worked out yet. The company’s name is Millennium Oceanic. Angel’s job is to work with the fishermen in Monte Cristi to operate the lobster house project.

18. Are the lobster houses located within or close to a protected area? What is the protected area called? When was it created? Are there any additional regulations due to the houses proximity to a protected area?

The lobster houses are located within Monte Cristi National Park, which includes los Siete Hermanos, and is also part of the Banco de la Plata y de la Navidad. This last reserve is designated as a scientific reserve and is the breeding ground for humpback whales and is shared with the Samaná Peninsula and Miches. There are no additional regulations for fishing in the area despite being a part of two national parks, according to Angel.

19. Are there any local rules for lobster extraction, such as extended vedas, increased minimum size, quotas, expulsion from the cooperative if they do not obey regulations, habitat protection, etc?

Nope.

20. Do the lobsters migrate during the hurricane season?

Yes.

21. Are other species of lobster found in the houses besides P. argus?

No.

22. Are there other species of lobster caught?

Yes, langostinos but not slipper lobsters. The langostinos are caught on the coral reefs.

Socioeconomic Concerns

23. How many lobsters does a lobster fisherman usually harvest in one day?

Unknown.

24. Where and how are the lobsters stored until they reach market?

On ice. They are sold dead.

25. Do the lobsters go through a middle man? Who are they?

The fishermen sell them to the pescadería, which also provides them with the equipment and boats. The pescadería sells the lobsters to another middle man that sells them to the restaurants.

26. What is the end destination of the lobsters? (i.e. restaurant in Punta Cana, local market)

Larger cities for the tourist market.

27. Is there a market for live or sustainable lobsters?

No there is no market for live lobsters. Also, the people do not care where their lobster comes from. The only possible sustainable lobster market would be in Punta Cana because that is the only place where there are enough tourists who may care about where their food comes from.

28. What is the price per pound/kg of lobster?

The lobster fishermen are paid 100-120 pesos per pound of lobster.

29. Can you buy lobster locally (at the store, in a local restaurant)? What is the price?

Yes. At Cocomar, the budget seafood restaurant on the ocean one lobster dish cost 750 pesos. They have terrible mosquitoes at night but supposedly the best food in town.

30. Do the fishermen fish lobsters with nasas as well?

Yes.

31. Do the fishermen fish with compressors? Has there been decompression sickness?

Yes, with a harpoon, and yes. It has decreased recently in the last ten years because the fishermen are more aware that diving at such depths with compressors is a problem.

32. Do the fishermen also fish other organisms, such as reef fish, octopus, etc.?

Yes.

33. What percentage of the fish catch are lobsters in the region?

Unknown.

34. Do the fishermen have other jobs? What are they? (tourism, fishing, farming, etc.)

Unknown.

35. What are the other industries in the area?

There are a lot of salt fields lining the road to the beach where about a foot of ocean water is let in, evaporates in two days because the area is so hot and dry, and the salt is harvested. There are also a lot of rice fields.

36. What kind of boat does the lobster fishermen have?

Same as in Miches. Motor boat that is able to fit 6 lobster houses on it if necessary.

Monte Cristi is known for a getaway for rich Dominicans (business men and politicians), many of which have a boat there that they leave year round.

37. How many fishers per boat?

2

38. Are the fishermen using poison?

Angel said that fishermen from other areas come into Monte Cristi and use poison to fish in the mangroves but Simon said that none of the fishers use poison.

39. Is there a problem with fishers coming from other communities to fish in Monte Cristi?

Angel said yes, but Simon said no.

40. Do the fishermen have GPSs?

The fishermen involved in the project have GPSs but the other fishermen do not.