This Puerto Rico Nursery Helped Save The Conch Species
Carrucho is a prized catch when it comes to different dishes out there. It is the priciest item in the fish market, along with El Malecon de Naguabo, since it is sold for $ 14 per pound!Â
Nowadays, the couch prize is not really the sliced white flesh that is heaped in the first bucket. A mother queen conch is known for laying half a million eggs over a day.Â
She also camouflages the strand within the sand as she moves around and fusses it into a really neat and tidy pile that can pass for a while of coral or even shell. She lays nine masses each year, which means she sends about 5 million larval conchs into the sea every year.Â
However, less than 1% of them survive to grow into the Caribbean’s favorite marine snail with a stunning glossing pink shell and sweet meat, which is eaten across 26 countries within its range. Sounds shocking, doesn’t it?Â
When it comes to a queen conch, the shell can grow as big as a football. It also has a great grip thanks to its handle-like cavity, and it actually weighs just like a brick. All of these features combined make it quite easy to spot and catch queen conchs, which is why overharvesting their meat, as well as shells, have collapsed different populations throughout their habitat in the Caribbean Sea as well as the Gulf of Mexico.Â
First country to lose the queens was the United States
The first country to lose the queens was the United States which in the past thrived at Florida’s southern tip.Â
They did not come back even though there was a ban on commercial conch fishing since 1975 and harvesting since 1986. Once the state ban was implemented, the sea snails were on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to monitor and limit trading.Â
Scientists claim that the huge conch herd of the Bahamas, which exports all the conch meat in the USA, has decreased to a number, making it hard for the animals to breed.Â
Saving this species is going to require bold steps, according to scientists. They say that harvesting them should be reduced to protect many swaths of the seagrass beds where the conchs gather in herds and breed.Â
When it comes to Puerto Rico, the animals are becoming extinct; however, they are much better protected here as compared to The Bahamas, as there is a closed season every summer that makes it possible for the conchs to breed and reproduce.Â
Ramos, a fisherman, also advises the animals. He says that fishers should be given a serious role in recovery efforts, and they should also be compensated for that work just like any other expert involved in this.Â
Ramos is one of the 800 fishers in Puerto Rico who dives for Garrucha as his main source of income and is also a part of the new reciprocal model that pays him for collecting eggs.Â
The amount he earns this way must be more than the amount he earns from harvesting conches. Ramos was scuba diving over a patch of seagrass and was 15 meters into the water, and that is when he grabbed a live queen conch which was ready to go to the market until he realized that it was a breeding mother.Â
There was a sandy egg pile laying beneath her shell. This is when Ramos took out a quarter of the egg mass with his fingers, added it to his sandwich back, and left the conch where she was.Â
He gave the bucket to the Conservation biologist Raimundo Espinoza
Once Ramos returned to the dock, he gave the bucket to the Conservation biologist Raimundo Espinoza who carried it into the dockside building.Â
This area is home to the Naguabo Fishing Association. Naguabo is Puerto Rico’s oldest fishing co-op founded half a century back by these ancestors. Some parts of the hurricane are missing due to Hurricane Maria, which hit in 2017.Â
The incident of September 20th was hell. Ortiz, a fisherman from the area, says that the Maria hurricane arrived less like other hurricanes which he had experienced in the last 59 years.Â
Homes and shops were completely ruined, and all the cars and boats were tossed. Even the weather instruments were destroyed. Like the rest of Puerto Rico, Naguabo had no power or cell service.Â
Naguabo was also used to secure most of the protein locally since residents there bought fish, lobster, shrimp from different fish markets, food trucks, and cafes. However, with no power, the seafood in markets was totally spoiled.Â
There were no boats either which meant that fishers could not catch more. Food became scarce, and there was no outside help either.Â
Espinoza went into chaos after two weeks of the storm
Espinoza, who was a young father with a special interest in social justice, went into chaos after two weeks of the storm.
He worked with Naguabo and many other fishing associations across Puerto Rico and set up two emergency relief projects. The funding for these came from the Ocean Foundation. U.S National Fish and Wildlife Foundation as well as the NOAA Marine Debris Program. Fishers were paid to retrieve lost gear from the seafloor, which included traps, and most were found illegal.
The second project was all about replacing lost fishing gear with sustainable gear. Espinoza also paid fishers to dive for nets and other gear that must have been swept out to sea. This project was one of the most positive experiences for Naguabo fishers ever had.
Espinoza brought the fishers the idea of working with an aquaculture scientist to build their associations with a queen conch hatchery. The anglers would be paid to construct, run it, as well as harvest the conch eggs.
All of the fishers agreed to this idea. The hatchery is now a place to work when it is too stormy to fish and is also a source of protein for the times when there is a food shortage. It is also for people as much as it is for conch.
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