Lobster held live in the boatside crate await transport back to town in Punta Herrero, a small, remote fishing camp in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in southernmost Caribbean Mexico. Fishermen use 'casitas cubanas', small concrete hutches that provide shelter and attract lobsters to concentrated areas where they can be more sustainably and effectively harvested by hand. This helps avoid by-catch, taking berried females and juveniles, and unnecessary impact to the reef. By limiting the fisherman's range through free diving it also leaves a larger population of larger lobsters in deeper water that can 'resupply' the shallow water populations. Lobsters are held in live tanks and driven every few days out to the cites where buyers purchase them for regional distribution to hotels and restaurants in places like Cancun. From a 2014 iLCP (International League of Conservation Photographers) expedition project documenting the people and places of the Mexican section of the Mesoamerican Reef (MAR).
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