Three weeks after the lobster harvest season began, fishing cooperatives have reported a decline in the production of the species.
When the lobster ban was opened, the divers of the cooperatives of Rio Lagartos, San Felipe and El Cuyo captured an average of 60 kilos a day per boat, sometimes even up o 100 kilos on a good day.
However, production has decreased by more than 50%, now divers are delivering to cooperatives only 10 to 20 kilos of the product per day.
Pastor Contreras Avilés, president of the Eastern Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives (Federación de Cooperativas Pesqueras en el Oriente), said that despite the low production, local divers are happy with the price as when the season began the sale price was 500 pesos per kilo, and it went up to 540 pesos per kilo, in only twenty days.
Currently the market for the Yucatecan lobster is either Quintana Roo or the United States, and although the dollar exchange rate has risen lately, the agreement with lobster catchers is that the product must be paid in Mexican pesos.
TYT Newsroom with information from yucatan.com.mx