Southeast and Caribbean 

 Invertebrate Fisheries 



Unit 



11 



JAMES M NANCE 

 DOUGLAS HARPER 



NMFS Southeast Fisheries 



Science Center, Galveston 



Laboratory 



Galveston 

 Texas 



INTRODUCTION 



Important recreational and commercial ma- 

 rine invertebrates in the southeastern United States 

 inchide shrimp, spiny lobster, stone crab, and 

 conch. Some fisheries, as tor coral, are almost non- 

 existent. Others, like the penaeid shrimp fishery, 

 are both extensive and extremely valuable. The 

 southeast region's shrimp fisheries are one ol the 

 most valuable U.S. fisheries based on ex-vessel rev- 

 enue. Some fisheries, such as those tor spiny lob- 

 ster and stone crab, have only moderate value on 

 a national basis but are important locally or re- 

 gionally. Because ot the diversit)' in species, fish- 

 eries, geographic locations, yields, values, etc., each 

 species group in the marine mvertebrates unit must 

 be examined separately tor proper perspective. 



Penaeid shrimp have been fished commercially 



since the late 1800's. The first fishery used long 

 seines in shallow waters, until the otter trawl, in- 

 troduced in 1915, extended shrimping to deeper 

 waters. At first, most vessels towed one large trawl, 

 sometimes 120 feet wide at the mouth. Soon, a 

 two-trawl arrangement (each about 40-75 teet 

 wide at the mouth) was tound more etfective. 

 Some shrimpers are using a rwin-trawl system 

 which tows tour trawls of about 40 feet wide at 

 the mouth. The twin-trawl system is now very 

 common gear on commercial oftshore shrimpers. 

 Regulations in the Gulf ot Mexico Shrimp 

 Fishery Management Plan restricts shrimping by 

 closing rwo shrimping grounds. 1 here is a seasonal 

 closure of fishing grounds off Texas tor brown 

 shrimp and a closure off Florida for pink shrimp. 

 There are also size limits on white shrimp caught 

 in Federal waters and landed in Louisiana. These 



Spiny lobster. 



1 43 



