Publication Spotlight

Every summer, the Florida Keys come alive as divers chase “bugs” – aka Caribbean spiny lobsters – during the 2-day recreational lobster sport season. It’s the busiest boating days of the year in the Keys! 

Since the 1990s, researchers have used aerial surveys to understand patterns of lobster fishing activity during sport season, referred to locally as mini season. Turns out, fishers aren’t scattering randomly, they cluster in “hot spots,” and many of them return to the same locations every summer.

This research provides knowledge of lobster fishing, supports boating safety and law enforcement, and fosters an abundant lobster population for fun and successful fishing adventures.
 

The Florida Keys support one of the world's most intense recreational lobster fisheries and is centered on the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus). Each year, a highly popular 2-day sport season precedes the regular lobster season. To quantify and characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of boating activity across the Florida Keys, we conducted aerial surveys in the 1990s and 2010s across a grid system of ∼1 nm2 cells, comparing lobster season openers (sport season and regular season opener) with non-lobster days. Boating activity peaked during lobster sport season, with most boats engaged in diving to target lobsters. During lobster season openers, dive boats were widely dispersed and occupied roughly twice as many grids as on non-lobster days and shifted from the oceanside (dominant during the closed season) to the Gulfside of the Florida Keys. Persistent hot spots of diving activity were identified across decades: on the Gulfside during lobster season openers and on the oceanside near or within Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Preservation Areas during non-lobster days. These consistent, localized concentrations of fishing pressure across decades underscore the importance of incorporating spatiotemporal patterns of fishing pressure into fisheries management. Evaluating the effects of such fishing pressure is critical for sustaining lobster stocks, improving boating safety, and safeguarding the sensitive wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems of the Florida Keys.

Renchen GF, Butler CB, Hutchinson E, Matthews TR. 2026. Chasing bugs: characterizing the spatiotemporal patterns of recreational lobster fishing in the Florida Keys. Ocean Coast Manag. 273: 108057.