Hurricane season ends and lobster season begins
(CNS): The first day of December is not only the start of the Christmas season, it is also the end of the six-month hurricane season and the beginning of the short lobster season. But the Department of Environment is reminding people as they look forward to the popular shellfish feast there are still limits on the catch and locations and the season is not a free-for-all. With numbers still woefully low, the season lasts only until the end of February, and no lobster may be taken from a Marine Park at any time.
The daily catch limit is three lobsters per person or a maximum of six lobsters per boat with two or more people. No one is allowed on any one day to take, permit another person to take, purchase, receive, offer for sale, exchange or donation, or possess more than three lobsters from Cayman waters. Only spiny lobster may be taken.
Report suspicious behaviour by calling DoE Enforcement at 949-8469 or 916-4271 or 911.
Meanwhile, Cayman can breathe another sigh of relief after escaping any major storms this hurricane season. Aside from rough seas in the wake of Hurricane Ian, the jurisdiction was spared any widespread serious damage this year. 2022 ended up being an average season with 14 named storms and hurricanes, with some wreaking havoc in other jurisdictions. While the summer was very quiet, September saw both Fiona and Ian, which went on to smash into Puerto Rico and the state of Florida.
While there is still a possibility of stormy weather, forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center said on Thursday that they did not expect to see any cyclones over the next five days.
See the local weather forecast here.
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Category: Marine Environment, Science & Nature, Weather
There are endless supplies of Lopsta and Kunk if you go 30ft+; you just need to free dive them.
Caymanians are responsible for the decimation of these species in our waters (shallow).
Local restaurants feed the poaching by locals.
These are all facts.
In the Rum Point marine park they are gone. All poached. All the big conch too. No one but Caymanians should be allowed to take either species and there should still be catch limits enforced. There is not enough grounds in Cayman to support all the restaurants. Fly it in from Bahamas where there are thousands of square miles of grounds.
If they can’t enforce against poaching what makes you think they can enforce a Caymanian only take? And at the end of the day, if you are a conch it doesn’t really matter if you are picked up by a Caymanian or an expat. Making buying conch illegal may help -at least the law abiding restaurants would stop buying – limit it to people taking for personal consumption. Or just ban it altogether. And egt the coastguard to help DOE.
8.50pm It’s Caymanians that do most of the poaching so that won’t help.
Last December I was in a restaurant in GT and they had local lobster on the menu. I asked the waiter where they got their lobsters from and he said some guy comes by each day and sells them to the restaurant. So much for the limits.
Because the DOE flatly refuse to conduct checks on restaurants or implement a workable policy of monitoring restaurant purchases and sales.
We all know the restaurants and owners who deal in stolen lobster and conch, and so do the DOE enforcement staff. But weak leadership deliberately stops officers from enforcing the law.
Make it illegal for divers with tanks (and night lights) to take lobsters! Oh, it already is? One wouldn’t have known!!
OK then, make it legal to prosecute divers with tanks who take lobsters. Oh, it already is?? One wouldn’t have known!!
Lobsters? What lobsters? They may as well declare open the beer bottles or car tires season, there is nothing else left in the sea
What are you taking about? I got 6 in 4 minutes.
Where, Marine Park?
Yes.
There are usually dozens around where I live. They all got taken months ago.
Now Wales has been knocked out of the World Cup Finals, the lobsters might now get the protection they’ve been denied. But I doubt that, back to self-interest and idleness me thinks.
True. It’s hard to stop poachers when you’re too busy running your own business during government hours.
Pointed, correct and hilarious!!!!
I have said this over and over people on work permits should NOT be allowed to take LOBSTER CONCH OR FISH as with our growing population all of these marine species will be gone before too long.If we go to other people’s countries we would be severely restricted so that should apply here.
It’s called preserving for our future generations.
I would love to know which countries in the world restrict fishing or diving for lobsters based on immigration status. Please tell me about these places where you would be severely restricted.
dip$#!t
USA 🇺🇸
You bet. US is harsh on poachers.
Shite football team though.
02 @ 1:29 pm – Check Canada, eh? Fishing permits are required in some provinces and they are issued based on who the applicant is. Canadians have priorities over non-Canadians.
The poster is proposing the same here.
Matter of fact, I think it already exists here (WP holders need fishing permits), but NOT enforced!!
Which provinces? Ones I can find online don’t do it that way.
Conservation Policy should be predicated on renewal rate not nationality of hunters. I am Caymanian and used to lobster and conch in season in better times, but I don’t want to contribute to the decimation of today. There will be no more left unless we choose to give our reefs a chance to rebound. All of us.
It’s fine for Caymanians to take lobster, conch and fish in the Cayman Islands.
I always thought that there has never been a “lobster season” in West Bay.
The above comment is funny!
Outlaw fishing and lobster hunting by non Caymanians.
but then comes corruption…
Corruption come here from morning. Please wake up.
Only a few breeding lobster left in the permissible areas because DOE have not presented any deterrence to marine park and replenishment zone poaching during the rest of the year. Dive shops are offering up racks of illegal Hawaiian slings (classified as a spear gun) all year round. They are illegal to sell or import into the Cayman Islands! Can’t even legally import parts.
Which dive shops?
This is misleading – the only slings/spears available, if any at all, are those used in the culling of lionfish. These are regulated and distributed by DOE only to registered lionfish cullers, who hold permits. Of course, there is the issue of these being used by the registered individuals for the poaching of other marine life, but that is a separate problem.
Hard to be a deterrence if you’re not doing the job you’re paid to do. You can’t catch poachers whilst spending most of government time conducting your own business, or from sitting in Fidels or Saltys watching football.
bs
they have already all been poached
ahh the Sea Roach 🙂
Bible says if you eat that lobsta you going straight to hell.
You mean the same Bible that tells us the following:
“Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.” (Mark 12:19)
“When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Can you confirm that a man should also sleep with his dead brother’s wife and cut off a woman’s hand for defending her husband.
how dare you call out the absurdities in the book ordain by the most intelligent being in the galaxy.
I see what you did there
You are all-seeing.
Correct. Yes, we must if we wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and live in eternal peace.
It’s not the defending the husband that’s the issue – it’s the taking by the secrets 😉
Centurian, Throw him to the ground.. Harshly.
6 lobsters, 4 mudslides. Still have our roof. Let the good times roll! This