Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / April 4, 1985, edition 1 / Page 71
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IOverfishir BY BARBARA S. MOFFET National Geographic News Service Nearly every Friday night, on the eastern Caribbean island of St. I.ucia, hundreds of residents and tourists gather to dance in the streets, drink, and eat conch meat Those Friday r.tght fetes are really wiping out the island's queen '""Vl * " I1UUUIC UlUlOglSl Carl J. Berg. To the north on Bermuda, in th?? Sargasso Sea. It already may be too late to save the queen conch. Berg says. A survey he made of Bermuda's waters turned up only a few young conchs The conch?a large marine snail with a flamboyant pearly pink shell?is growing scarce throughout its range. The shells that children lift to their ears to "hear the ocean" and tourists carry home to adorn coffee tables and mantles are sold at the estimated rate of a million a year in Florida. Caribbean people have endless purposes for the conch?arranging the shells in neat rows to mark graves, for example. Entire iiaies nave oeen lorrneo trom cast-off shells. FRITTERS AND CHOWDERS But conch (pronounced "konk") is most important as a source of nutrition, the "hamburger of the Caribbean." The conch snail is cut from its shell and its muscle meat prepared in dozens of ways?in stews, chowders, fritters, and raw with crackers. Millions of conchs are shipped to the United States to supply Cubans, Haitians. and other Caribbean immigrants. Overfishing, especially to support a $5 million a year export industry', has severly depleted the species. Berg, of the Marine Biological laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., and his colleague, Kathenne urr, are trying to reverse the tide. They said the eastern Caribbean in 19A4 gathering hundreds of conch specimens for a study. On each of the 15 islands they visited, they heard virtually the same story, as Berg recalls: The old folks would say. 'When I was a kid I could wade out knee-deep to catch dinner for our family. Now we have to take scuba tanks far from shore and dive as deep as 100 feet for conch." A diver for 20 years. Berg often had a hard time finding concha, especially at Dominica, where fishermen -?*? ucmruy uuaoeioupe ana Martinique have helped decimate them. ?5Sd iS2 22fj! ?rr.?th cflce obscured the shells from view. The islands' fisheries officials unanimously supported Berg's goal: to determine scientifically- how to ensure a permanent conch population for all of the islands His wort is partly funded by the National Geographic Society. Ignorance ran deep "Some cf the fishermen were collecting the babies and net realizing they were conch. "' Katherine Orr reports "They knew nothing about Use mail's reproduction: they though cooefss just appeared. " Much of her tin* was spent teaching islanders the facts of conch hfe. lg Threatens < r i PHOTO BY JODIC( SUCCESSFUL SNORKELER emerge with a queen conch. FLOATS GREAT DISTANCES The queen conch (Strombus gigas) begins life underwater as one of thousands of eggs in a sac that resembles a sand-covered wad of spaghetti. The egg develops into a "veliger", not much larger than a grain of sand, and begins to float freely, transported perhaps hun *??? u. ..uica uy ur sea s currents 8 & G , Associates 5 Airport Plaza Ocean Isle Beach Everything We Tos -T.-C Sunny days and balmy breez 4-bedroom, 2-bath colorfully i a deep water canal. Call toda 579-3 CALL THE RESC , m M w*cc? lonch, Staple )BB NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY ? from the waters of a St Croix reef As it floats, the tiny shell on its back grows. After about three weeks, the conch loses its swimming lobes and settles onto the sandy bottom, whce it will remain for 24 years. At the age of three, it has a full rose-colored shell and also is ready to reproduce. Conrhs roninln in Ikoir aVw.ll. I .1 ul >nvu aiKUJiui nulling , the female la fertilized by a farreaching male organ. ich Turrit To Sold" urn r* atiM?t> t% tnvlU* voti tn this Invclv decorated home located on ty for an appointment '556 l.TS PEOPLE Supplement to The Bn Of Caribbeai CONCH HARITC By digging its clnwUkc foot into the sand, a conch can propei itself forward in a series of short hops to seek food or flee enemies. Conchs arc believed to live six years on the average, some of them perhaps twice that. A goal of the scientists' nrniect is tn discover which conch populations are related and how they disperse. To determine feasibility of chemical identification, Berk aiiu Off fulleiuii conch samples from four widely scotteredjraints?Bermuda. Belize. Carriacou. and the Turks and Calcos Islands Chemical analyst of the samples showed significant geneticvariety among the four sites. I*st year they zeroed in on Mexico and the Lesser Antilles Islands in the eastern Caribbean, where conch is an important resource, collecting samples from 19 populations. The samples arc being analyzed by Univesity of Colorado Professor Jeffry Mitton to determine the in terdepcndence of conch populations. DISPERSAL PATTERNS PUZZLE j "liCt's say all of St. I^icia's conch HIGHLAND O o SHALL Serving Brum jjy^agc! ... -? We offer radio dispatc hours a day, 7 days a modern, temperature-* Services Avail* Daily and weekly rote Pr* inri rokin Special low airport r Beoch and Wilmingtor Special low bus static* Beoch and Wilmiogtor Wtooe Monday-Friday 754-6477 754-4171 Grant Confi innwlck Boocon. April-May. 1985 Pago 43 n Islands Float there from Barbados," Berg conjectures. "St. Lucia could kill off all of its conch and still have plenty coming In. The key to its supply would lie miles awny on Barbados." Even patterns within St. Lucia's waters are murky. Berg lias udvLsed islanders planning to start a conch fishery on the south end to wait for results of the specimen analysis. If the island's southern conch prove to bo the parents of those in the north, a new fishery could destroy all of the island's breeders. The decline in conch populations was first noticed more than 10 years ago on Barbados and later at two sites with large fisheries-Belize mid the Turks and Calcos. Some Islands now restrict conch fishing; it has been illegal in Bermuda since 1978 To rejuvenate Bermuda's conch population, Berg lias recommended moving egg cases in from a downstream site. He also has helped the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to draw up laws regulating conch fishing. The regulations which would luir , i,.? ,.i baby conch?await ratification by the islands' government. \B COMPANY F orn sw/ck County [ ?* : r a ' 5^/^.w/i? jgB^^a **.. -*?^!^ J^SBH hed services 24 week. Clean, controlled taxis. able? i aim to ond from Myrlie i i rote* to ond from Mynlv Phona 24 fioiria day, 7 day t a waak 754-6477 eld, Owner
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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April 4, 1985, edition 1
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