Strombus gigas, mollusk also known as the pink conch or queen conch. #Conch #mollusk #SeaAnimals #coralreef #fishing #travelvideo #travel #bahamas #caribbeanislands #marinelife #marinebiology
Look at what we managed to find on one Bahamas beaches. It’s a live Strombus gigas mollusc also known as the pink conch or queen conch. It is really rare to find a live pink conch on the beach. This shell is approximately two-three years old, almost reached adulthood. When the shell is up to 15 mm thick and 18 cm long, it is considered an adult and is ready to breed. It is fully mature when it reaches 3-4 years of age. It is a pretty funny looking creature, almost from a cartoon. Its eyes are on stalks. Its trying to fight so hard for its life, trying to get out of the hands of this person. The adult pink conch can mate up to 9 times in a year and these molluscs are only distinctly male or female. A female can lay up to 1 million eggs. However, only one will reach adulthood. That’s unbelievable! The pink conch is herbivorous, they feed mainly on algae and seaweed. They can live up to thirty years and live in both shallow water and deep water, up to thirty metres deep. Lost of biological research has shown that normal breeding requires approximately 100 adult molluscs per hectare of sea floor. That explains the sharp decline of the pink conch population in and around the Caribbean sea. In some areas, there are only 15 adult molluscs per hectare which is almost 6 times less than that is considered necessary for normal breeding. The main problem is severe over fishing over the past years and this is due to its very delicious meat. Traditionally, Caribbeans cook many dishes with these conch including the famous conch salad. This dish is extremely desirable and offered in many restaurants scattered around the Caribbean. Despite the multiple new regulations for fishing and seasonal restrictions and that these pink conch are regulated under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora agreement, the population of pink conch continues to decline. This population declines yearly at an alarming rate of 50% less than the population from the previous year. Unfortunately, all the restrictions don’t apply to the local people and they continue to catch and eat the conch as usual. Although, it becomes harder to do since they are left to dive deeper and further from the beach in order to catch and find more conch. Still, these pink conch are offered to the tourists in restaurants. For example, on any beach you can easily find a few dead shells inside the water or on the beach. Its very painful to see how hundreds of dead shells pile up after a successful fishing trip. You can see the hole at the top of the shell made by a sharp instruments as part of the killing process. The population of the pink conch is restoring itself very slowly simply because there aren’t enough adult molluscs per hectare of sea floor. They also move extremely slowly so it becomes hard for a female and male to find each other and mate. Genetical tests show that the population of pink conch is very localized, they cannot travel very far. The younger ones cannot travel very far and are usually found in one general area. Even now, if we cease fishing completely to try to restore the population, it will takes years to do so, if its possible. In some areas they are already extinct. I don’t want to finish this video on a sad note so I’m going to say that one out of ten thousand shell has a unique treasure. A very rare pink pearl. The larger pearls are valued more than diamonds. This fact gives us hope that maybe one day, scientists will find a way to grow these pearls in conch in captivity and breed them commercially. This gives hope that the Pink Conch won’t go completely extinct and leave only it’s beautiful shell with a hole inside. Thank you for watching.

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