He says the rate of decline really hit them when they looked at population counts over the past decade. On a warm, sunny day last April, two researchers from Chicago's Shedd Aquarium went to count conchs in the country's Exuma Cays. Floating above beds of seagrass in the clear, turquoise water, biologist Andy Kough and dive program manager Amanda Weiler stretched out a tape measure between them to determine the exact space they plan to measure.
They were expecting to find lots of conch babies. But between the stretch of their tape measure, Kough found just a few adults and counted only a sparse population of juveniles—the age needed to ensure conch communities are sustained.
The waters, once crowded enough to be considered a nursery, were scant. But it's the increasing pattern of off years that concern conservationists. Without intervention, they surmise, conchs won't be able to reproduce at a rate quick enough to keep with with the intense demand fishers are trying to meet in the Bahamas. One is to require that conchs be brought out of the water in their shells.
Conch shells, particularly older ones, can be heavy, and most fishers in the Bahamas fish by free diving—simply holding their breath to dive underwater without the help of scuba gear. To use energy efficiently, they dive down to seagrass beds, crack the shells, and pull the slugs out, leaving the shell behind.
Only adult conchs can be legally fished. Kough is optimistic about the change. The paper also suggests banning the export of conchs, a proposal supported by Shelly Cant-Woodside , the director of science and policy for the Bahamas National Trust. Both the paper and Cant-Woodside also agree on limiting conch fishing to only a few months out of the year. For any of the policies they enact, Cant-Woodside anticipates backlash.
Any restrictions on what, for many people, is their sole source of income will be met with resistance, she says. Some, however, are less resistant that others. If conch is no longer available, he says, he'll turn to cooking other dishes, but he hears from conch fishers in the field that they're concerned about the future of the fishery. Habitat degradation, over-fishing, and the use of SCUBA have led to harvest of previously unexploited populations in deeper waters. Queen conch was once found in high numbers in the Florida Keys but, due to a collapse in conch fisheries in the s, it is now illegal to commercially or recreationally harvest queen conch in that state.
Conch fritters. For 65 million years, conchs have dwelled in the warm, mostly shallow waters of our planet. Their habitat of choice is just one factor contributing to their currently dwindling numbers—pollution has led to the degradation of their preferred seagrass beds, and shallow waters, where juveniles in particular cluster, are all too easy for humans to infiltrate.
Moreover, these mollusks move slowly, are easily identifiable, and can be harvested by hand or with basic fishing gear, like long hooked poles. They have no line of defense. Even in Florida, with three decades of stringent protection behind them, conchs are not recovering well.
That probably explains why anytime we brought up the issue of overfishing conch to a Bahamian we were met by incredulity. No worries—have yourself another conch fritter! A tropical conch salad. A status report filed by the National Marine Fisheries Service aka NOAA Fisheries references several studies that concluded various parts of the Bahamas showed undeniable signs of overexploitation. Problem is, that thinking is 17 years old. In parts of the Caribbean, rules have been put into place to curb overfishing.
But it's still a major problem, due to lack of rule enforcement, cross-border poaching and a great demand for conch as an export, according to Davis. Other problems have to do with the world at large. Conchs are vital to the ocean both as herbivorous consumers and prey.
As previously mentioned, the Florida Keys suspended its conch harvesting industry in the s and implemented marine preserves in an effort to help the population rebound. So far, it's failed to do the trick. So, experts are turning to strict recommendations to keep the Caribbean from winding up in Florida's shoes. In fact, Davis says that the Bahamas reduced export of conch in , with plans to phase it out completely by Throughout much of the Caribbean, however, the advice is inconsistently heeded.
Some countries have all the needed rules but there is no enforcement," Davis notes. If you've read this far, we think you know the answer: Leave it alone, unless you are sure there is no animal inside it. People have been jailed in Florida for taking a live conch from the beach or the ocean. You're not really hearing the ocean when you hold a conch shell up to your ear.
0コメント