Florida Keys locals, captains angry over additional day to lobster mini-season: ‘They wreak havoc, we don’t benefit’

KEY WEST, Fla. – Locals in the Florida Keys are frustrated by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to add an extra day to the 2024 recreational spiny lobster mini-season.

They cited worries about environmental damage, safety, enforcement challenges and other concerns.

Florida’s Voice interviewed a handful of locals who work in boating, hospitality, and public safety – who collectively believe there is no tangible benefit, as outlined in this article.

DeSantis announced the addition of an extra day to the 2024 recreational spiny lobster mini-season. Spiny lobster mini-season takes place on July 24 and July 25. The additional day announced by the governor will take place on July 14, 10 days earlier.

The regular commercial and recreational lobster season will begin on Aug. 6, and ends March 31, 2025.

According to the tourism website, the limit is six lobsters per person, per day, in Monroe County. “Double-dipping” trips are prohibited, according to the rules.

However, due to the size and amount of boats in the area, many locals, including Chris Tanaka, believe there is no real way to regulate and ensure the rules are being followed.

“I don’t know how many officers are patrolling, but just for perspective, you have 30,000 people over 120 miles stretch of body of water… how could it be regulated? There’s just not a great way to strongly regulate that – other than not inviting chaos,” Tanaka told Florida’s Voice.

Tanaka said in the past, he has seen boats going in and out of the canal “multiple times.” He said he witnessed one man “bragging” about getting around 70 pounds of lobster.

Florida’s Voice reached out to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to inquire about additional resources being added and requested an interview on the topic.

A spokesperson said they will have additional staff present to “ensure public safety while on the water and that regulations are being followed.”

The FWC declined an interview with Florida’s Voice on the topic. The spokesperson said the FWC was consulted before the executive order was signed.

Additionally, multiple people told Florida’s Voice they had concerns over the damage caused to the reef.

Tanaka said in the past, he has seen destruction from “coral heads flipped over,” to “grass flats ripped up,” along with “trash everywhere.”

“This happens every time, people who come down, have no idea where they’re going and they just rip up the grass flats,” Tanaka said.

From a hospitality perspective, Tanaka, who also bartends part-time, said the visitors “don’t spend a lot of money because they’re spending so much to go out on the water.”

Tanaka said although mini-season can bring some economic relief during a slower time of the year, he doesn’t think it’s “substantial enough to offset the damage that occurs.”

“It’s not pleasant overall,” Tanaka said, noting a lot of the visitors are “short, brief, and rude.”

Tanaka believes possibly limiting the number of lobsters to two (instead of six) per person would be a partial solution.

“It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. If you’re trying to preserve something, and you’re inviting ecological chaos, all these boats and all these people into a sensitive area, how in any way does that make any sense? It doesn’t,” Tanaka said.

“I think it’s kind of a step backwards rather than a step forward,” Tanaka said.

Facebook users widely expressed disapproval of the decision, as seen on pages such as The Keys Weekly Newspaper and Visit the Florida Keys.

Comments varied from “No way to control this,” to locals calling lobster mini season a “nightmare” in the Keys, and some just saying it’s a “ridiculous idea!”

Brandon Bertini, boat captain and lieutenant with Monroe County Fire Rescue, told Florida’s Voice he is “shocked” by the decision and doesn’t understand the reason for the addition.

In his experience, Bertini said the visitors often “don’t know our waters” and “you’ll see him running aground – just destroying the bottom.”

The extra day is exclusive for Florida residents, however, Bertini said since the extra day isn’t limited to locals-only, this allows anyone from the state to “come down and take our resources and abuse our waters.”

“You get a lot of inexperienced people down here that just wreak havoc. We don’t benefit whatsoever,” Bertini said.

From the fire rescue side, he noted they are minimally staffed so “those resources are definitely being taken away from the people on land and the regular people that live down here.”

“Every year somebody dies, whether it’s a heart attack, or a scuba diving incident, or we’ve had several times where, you know, a family member runs over another family member,” Bertini said.

Last year, a few medical incidents were reported including one death. In 2022, two fatalities were reported.

According to the Divers Alert Network, in the last 10 years, lobster mini-season resulted in “an average of two dive fatalities per season.”

With the influx of boaters visiting the area, Bertini said he thinks officials can only “pull over so many people” and believes “there’s no way to actually measure how many lobsters are caught.”

“We’ve been wanting it [mini lobster season] closed for so long. I never in my life have thought they would add a random day in the middle of the month for no reason whatsoever. Just blows my mind away,” Bertini said.

Bertini believes a possible solution would be to make mini-season only for boats registered in Monroe County.

“Not only does that bring money into like the small businesses, the charter boats, and boat rental businesses, but it also puts people on a boat with a responsible captain who knows the waters knows not gonna be very close,” Bertini said.

“It doesn’t even bring the right kind of people down here. For most people, they don’t eat out at restaurants, they’re not going out much, they’re staying in a house somewhere, they bring in their own boat,” Bertini explained.

Bertini, who also runs charters for mini-season, said “half people that come out don’t tip very well.”

“In the last 20 or 30 years, I haven’t heard anybody say ‘we want more lobster mini season,’ it’s overwhelmingly been more driven towards closing it,” Bertini explained.

Charter boat captain Will Benson told Florida’s Voice he “appreciates” what the governor is trying to do, but thinks the decision “misses the mark a little bit.”

Benson urges leadership to engage in discussions with stakeholders, community members, and scientists to assess the mini-season’s impact in their community.

“For instance, for me as a charter guide, can I even run trips during that day? Probably not, if I don’t have a Florida resident that I’m taking out, it’s virtually impossible to go charter fishing on that, because of the volume of people that come down to the keys,” Benson said.

Benson said there is “too much chaos going on the water for folks like me who charter fish to go out there.”

Captain John Buckheim, who also spoke with Florida’s Voice, said he feels about 75% of locals are “against season periods.”

“So it was a huge slap in the face to add an additional day to something that we’ve all been actively working on getting rid of, or coming up with better solutions for,” Buckheim explained.

In the past, there have been petitions to end the lobster mini-season altogether.

Buckheim said many locals have “already set their schedules” and “do not have the resources to enforce this.”

He noted that last year’s lobster season was “extremely hot that resulted in a poor lobster season.”

Buckheim noted the problem isn’t necessarily about the number of lobsters harvested, but also the disturbance caused when a few are removed from a group under a ledge, causing the remaining lobsters to flee the area and “don’t come back.”

“Even if you only caught your legal six lobsters, then maybe 200 lobsters are displaced by that – that don’t come back – that walk off,” Buckheim said.

Buckheim noted that there hasn’t been a significant influx of migrating lobsters observed so far.

“There’s not a lot of lobster here at the moment and disrupting them during mid-migration when they’re all just settling in – I think is just an absolutely horrible idea,” he explained.

Florida’s Voice will check back in with sources following mini-season to discuss their observations and any potential impact.