Using tyres as shelters for the protection of juvenile spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus, or as a fishing gear for adults

Abstract

This study evaluated use of tyres (as ‘casitas,’ not currently used in Venezuela) as shelters for juvenile lobsters or as a fishing gear for adults. In surveys at the Los Roques Archipelago National Park, eight ‘tyre casitas’ (area covered 0.44–0.57 m² ) and eight wire traps (area covered 1.60–1.98 m²) were randomly placed, 15 m apart, on a 60-× 60-m area of sandy bottom covered with mobile brown algae (depth 1.5 m). The same arrangement was repeated, 400 m away, on a sea-grass bottom. The structures were checked and rearranged weekly, for eight weeks. Lobsters caught were measured, weighed, and released 2–5 km away. Of the 117 lobsters caught, 70.9% came from traps (size range 74.1–153.0 mm CL) and 29.1% from the tyre casitas (6.1–127.1 mm CL). Only 14 (11.9%) were of minimum legal landing size (120 mm CL), and 12 (85.7%) of these were caught in traps. Of the 83 lobsters captured in traps, 51 (61.4%) came from the sea-grass bottom, whereas of the 34 captured in tyre casitas, 27 (79.4%) came from the sandy bottom. The tyre casitas used seem more efficient as shelter for juveniles than as a fishing device for adults.