The devastating impacts of the coronavirus epidemic that started in late December on the other side of the world in China are now being felt in the Florida Keys.
What could coronavirus possibly have to do with Florida Keys’ commercial fishermen? Plenty, given that 95% of the Keys’ commercial spiny lobster catch has been sold to China for the past decade or so. That is, until the Chinese virus that sounds like a Mexican beer closed the world’s most populated country to U.S. flights and kept Chinese people out of the restaurants whose menus featured Florida spiny lobster tails.
“We can’t ship to China, because there are no flights going in, and even if there were, my Chinese fisheries rep told me, the Chinese people are only allowed to go inside a grocery store for, say, 30 minutes at a time to get what they need and get back inside their homes,” said Emily Paan-Palma whose family owns The Lobster Connection.
The business is headquartered in Marathon, but the commercial fishing family has 8,000 spiny lobster traps.
“My dad fishes off Marathon, and my brother does Key West to the Dry Tortugas,” she said. “They’re saying this could last up to six months. It’s devastating our season, which ends March 31.”
Bill Kelly, president of the Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association, has said the wholesale value of locally caught spiny lobster dropped from $10.50 per pound to $6 per pound in a matter of a few days.
The closure of the Chinese market for Florida’s spiny lobsters has led to an unexpected, and for commercial lobstermen, unwelcome, abundance of the tasty crawfish here in the Keys. While the supply-and-demand shift eventually could lead to lower retail prices for retailers and consumers here in the Keys, the commercial lobstermen are doing anything but celebrating.
Gary Nichols, a commercial lobster fisherman on Conch Key, has been selling the bulk of his lobster catch to China for the past decade or so.
“Thank God for the Chinese,” Nichols said in a 2018 television interview. “We sure import a lot of things from China and people complain, `Oh, it’s Chinese-made.’ Well if it wasn’t for the Chinese right now, I’d be getting three or four dollars a pound for lobster instead of $12 or $13 a pound for lobster.”
In recent years, Florida lobster exports to China have ranged from $50 million to $75 million a year.
That figure has dropped to near $0 in the past month.
