Juan Fernandez Rock Lobster

• The fishery has been managed by the islanders themselves for more than a century, with closed seasons, minimum sizes and the compulsory return of egg-bearing females.
• It is endemic to a tiny archipelago in the middle of the Pacific, which makes it extremely vulnerable to any failure of management.
• It is a strict endemic of the Juan Fernández archipelago and the Desventuradas Islands, and lives nowhere else in the world.
• It is the economic backbone of Robinson Crusoe Island: practically the entire population depends on its fishery, which is exported live to Asia and Europe.
• And that fishery has been managed for more than a century under a remarkable community system: the fishers themselves established a closed season, a minimum size, protection for berried females and an informal system of rights over trap grounds that is respected by local agreement, with no need for outside enforcement.
• That model is cited internationally as an example of sustainable artisanal fisheries management maintained by the community itself.
• It has no claws: like all spiny lobsters, it defends itself with its spiny antennae and with its backward dash.
• Its larval phase is extremely long, more than a year in the open sea, which makes recruitment depend on the currents and vary greatly from year to year.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat & environment

Volcanic rocky bottoms of oceanic islands in the south-eastern Pacific, from 0 to 200 m

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasus_frontalis