Cracked
If you’ve been down to Florida in the past many years and enjoyed some Conch Fritters, you’ve likely been enjoying Queen Conch from the Bahamas (or some other Caribbean nation). The Conch in Florida are off limits since the fishery collapsed in the 80’s.
The Bahamas seems a world apart from the massive population of Florida. There are, after all, only about 320,000, as compared to 19,500,000 over in Florida. It seems hard to imagine the conch fishery in the Bahamas could face a similar fate as that suffered by Florida. The Bahamas, in places, seems like endless habitat for conch (and bonefish).
Well… where is there is demand there is money and where there is money, people will chase it down, bulldozing anything in their way, even their own futures. It turns out there are some real concerns about the fate of Conch in the Bahamas.
The group Community Conch is hoping to address this issue.
- If you liked the story above, check out these stories below
- I Love Crack(ed Conch) (0.948)
- Things I love about the Bahamas (0.948)
- Imagine the Bahamas without conch (0.948)
Tags: Bahamas, Community Conch, Conch, Conservation
Hey, good post on conch.
It’s been a problem for quite awhile. Throw dollars at anything and they’ll eat it to extinction, strip it, dam it, chop it down or burn it down. A sad reality.
Thanks for posting that. You see those giant mounds of conch shells and I always think “That can’t be good.” It’s one thing to educate the local fishermen but the consumers also have to be educated and committed to the plan. I knew about the lip being the indicator of a mature conch but not about the 15mm thickness. I will communicate the issue when I fish the Bahamas.
They wiped them out at Los Roques as well.