Abstract — The spiny lobster (Panu- 
lirus argus ) fishery in Florida was 
operationally inefficient and over- 
capitalized throughout the 1980s. 
The Trap Certificate Program ini- 
tiated during the 1992-93 season 
was intended to increase gear effi- 
ciency by reducing the number of 
traps being used while maintaining 
the same catch level in the fishery. 
A depletion model was used to esti- 
mate trap fishing efficiency. The 
costs of fishing operations and the 
value of the catch were used to deter- 
mine the revenues generated by the 
fishery under different trap levels. 
A negative functional relationship 
was found between the catchability 
coefficient and the number of traps, 
which indicated that the fewer traps 
operating under the trap reduction 
scheme were more efficient. Also, the 
financial analyses indicated that the 
higher catch efficiency resulting from 
fewer traps generated significantly 
higher revenues, despite lower stock 
abundances. This study indicates 
that the trap reduction program had 
improved a situation that would have 
been much worse. 
Manuscript submitted 9 May 2008. 
Manuscript accepted 4 November 2008. 
Fish. Bull. 107:186-194 (2009). 
The views and opinions expressed 
or implied in this article are those 
of the author and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Management of fishing capacity 
in a spiny lobster ( Panulirus argus ) fishery: 
analysis of trap performance under the 
Florida spiny lobster Trap Certificate Program 
Nelson M. Ehrhardt (contact author) 
VaSSserre K. W. Deleveaux 
Email address for contact author: nehrhardt@rsmas.miami.edu 
Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries 
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science 
University of Miami 
4600 Rickenbacker Causeway 
Miami, Florida 33149 
The Florida spiny lobster ( Panuli- 
rus argus) fishery has been exploited 
since the early 20 th century (Labisky 
et al., 1980); however, demand for 
lobster products in the U.S. markets 
did not materialize until the early 
1960s. Rapid growth of the fishery 
took place in the late 1960s and early 
1970s and since then total landings 
have varied between 1800 and 2700 
metric tons (t) whole weight, with no 
discernible pattern. Fishing effort 
expanded from 250,000 traps in the 
early 1970s to approximately 940,000 
traps by the 1991-92 fishing season 
(August-March). This fishery devel- 
opment took place mainly in the 
Florida Keys, where today over 90% 
of Florida’s harvest is landed with a 
dockside value exceeding $40 million. 
Therefore, the spiny lobster fishery is 
one of the most important fisheries in 
the State. High fishing intensity, over- 
capitalization, negative environmental 
impacts, and gear conflicts charac- 
terized the fishery until the Florida 
Legislature enacted a trap reduction 
program in 1991. 
The Trap Certificate Program 
(TCP) was implemented in the Flor- 
ida spiny lobster fishery taking the 
1992-93 fishing season as a base. 
One of the goals of the TCP was to 
increase the efficiency of the traps 
used in the fishery. Seasonal catch 
per trap in the Florida Keys fishery 
decreased from about 24.1 kg per 
trap using about 97,000 traps in the 
1969-70 fishing season to about 3.1 
kg per trap from about 851,000 traps 
in the 1991-92 fishing season. While 
the catch per trap decreased, the to- 
tal seasonal landings were sustained 
at an average of 2.8 million kg whole 
weight through most of the fully de- 
veloped fishery (1975 to 2004). The 
TCP proposed a steady reduction in 
the number of traps while keeping 
the total landings unaffected. This 
desirable objective was thought pos- 
sible because total landings were sus- 
tained over the wide range of traps 
used in the fishery. 
There was an operational assump- 
tion that the trap catchability (the 
fraction of the seasonal stock biomass 
taken by each trap) would increase 
because there would be less compe- 
tition for the fixed seasonal spiny 
lobster biomass as the trap numbers 
were reduced. Under the TCP, the to- 
tal number of traps was to be reduced 
annually by a fixed percentage of the 
number of traps used during the pre- 
vious fishing season, starting with 
the 1993-94 season. However, this 
strategy was modified several times 
in the ensuing years, mainly due to 
economic hardships resulting from 
environmental impacts, e.g., Hurri- 
cane George in September 1998, and 
a perceived decrease in stock abun- 
dance. This TCP was the first limited 
access system to be implemented in 
the southeastern United States. 
By the early 2000s the spiny lobster 
trap fishermen expressed reservations 
about whether the TCP would be able 
to resolve the economic hardship that 
they had faced. Therefore, in order to 
