EDITOR, The Tribune.
STROMBUS gigas or Queen Conch as it is known to most of us, is collapsing in most of its historic Caribbean region.
Though taking them has been absolutely banned in the Florida Keys for 30 years now, they still haven’t come back in any significant numbers.
The recent trend in their numbers elsewhere are not encouraging either.
We are unsure of the true numbers of conch leaving The Bahamas, from our own exports, as well as, foreign poachers, mostly Dominican and American it seems.
We do know that in the last five years, the number of adult conchs have declined in Exuma Land & Sea Park by 71 percent. This, in one of the most stringently regulated parks we have in The Bahamas.
Certainly this is a huge concern.
It is also a given that we have very little enforcement of our fisheries laws throughout our Family Islands, as well as, most of the marine parks administered by the Bahamas National Trust.
And, The Bahamas has faced an historic inability to regulate and halt foreign poaching, nor have we managed to successfully convince our own citizens to abide by the Fisheries laws. Proof of this is available in every shoreside heap of conch shells in The Bahamas.
Conch is considered an important staple of the Bahamian diet and should be protected first and foremost for the Bahamian people.
The continued relative abundance of conch should be considered immensely important to our people, and a very valuable element of the tourist experience which we can also capitalise on.
All the science points to a severe reduction in the abundance of conch regionally, with potential extinction, if significant and workable conservation measures are not put into place fairly quickly. The science is only just catching up to the regional declines and the requirements for a healthy and sustainable fishery.
A proactive approach is the best way to assure the future availability of this important food source.
The lessons learned from fisheries globally regarding regulation and conservation have always come too late.
This is much too important a resource to not take a proactive conservative approach for the sake of our human population, as well as, our valuable conch population.
Please Bahamians, educate yourself about what is going on with our conch populations so that we can make sensible and long-term decisions for the benefit of us all.
I believe it is incumbent upon us to immediately halt the export of our Queen Conch.
NORMAN TRABULSY Jr
Mangrove Cay,
Andros,
July 13, 2018.
Comments
Dawes 5 years, 8 months ago
Sounds good, however nothing will happen until its too late, and we are getting to too late very quickly.
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