Human Consumption
P. argus is a popular seafood item for human consumption. It is the most important food export of the Bahamas, and rivals the shrimp industry in the Florida Keys in commercial value. They are eagerly sought by both commercial lobstermen and sport divers in South Florida, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas.
In Florida, there is a season where the spiny lobster may be taken, usually from the beginning of August to the end of March. A special "mini season" a few days before the start of the regular lobster season gives recreational divers a "head start" in catching them. Divers catch them by gloved hand, often "tickling" them out of their dens with a dowel or small stick. In the Bahamas and Caribbean, they are often also speared or gigged (Florida game regulations prohibit taking them by these methods). Commercially, they are caught with lobster traps similar to those used by lobster fishermen in New England. The traps are usually baited with dead fish or chicken necks.
Read more about this topic: Panulirus Argus
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or consumption:
“One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“I should like to suggest that at least on the face of it a stroke by stroke story of a copulation is exactly as absurd as a chew by chew account of the consumption of a chicken’s wing.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)