Citing the considerable amount of conch being consumed daily by most Bahamians, Department of Fisheries Director Michael Braynen said yesterday that the queen conch resource in the country is now under significant fishing pressure.
Mr. Braynen said there is a large number of “juvenile or immature” conchs being harvested, particularly in the northern Bahamas in islands such as Grand Bahama and Abaco, which are located close to the Little Bahama Bank.
With the limited resources of the Fisheries Depart-ment, he said it is hard to know just how much conch exist in the ocean. Therefore, the Department will be conducting a special study as early as next month to gather information that will give an estimation of the conch population.
“We have to manage in a conservative way. One of the commonly used techniques to manage marine resources is to protect the “juveniles” and also to protect the resource when it is producing,” Mr. Braynen said. “We currently have laws in place that protect juveniles, but many of them are still being harvested and sold.
“When you have a situation where a large number of juveniles are being harvested and you also have a situation where fishermen are reporting or stating that they have to go greater distances to harvest conch, and consumers are complaining about the sizes of conch, these are all indications that there may be overfishing of the resource.”
Mr. Braynen said as the population gets bigger, the demand for conch will get bigger. If the queen conch is not properly preserved, he added, then how can it possibly sustain such demands in the future?
“We know that conch is very important to Bahamians all over,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is get to a position where the resource is over harvested. You may get the conch population down to such a low level that the conchs don’t reproduce anymore.”
It was his view that vendors and consumers may have to face the choice of having a season where they would not get any conch or the prospect of not having conch at all.
“I must say that the Government is not going to say impose a conch season without first consulting with the people who are going to be affected,” he said. “We know that is going to be a whole lot of people because a lot of Bahamians eat conch.”
Mr. Braynen said Bahamians are already accustomed to the fact that there is a closed season for lobster and are slowing getting used to the ban on grouper at a certain time; however, closed season for conch has never been seriously talked about.
“It is not a decision that is going to be made quickly,” he said. “There is no place else in the world where people eat as much conch as The Bahamas.”
Grand Bahama Fisheries Officer Michelle Knowles said even though no research is currently being done on the island about the conch, she believes that every fisherman must do his part to preserve the queen conch for future generations.
Ms. Knowles noted that a conch project was conducted in 2003, which included the gathering of data on the measurement of conch meat and its shell. She said the data was suppose to be applied to a research paper, but she does not know if the document has been completed as yet.
“The data that was collected helps us to determine what the normal size and age of a conch is based on evidence,” Ms. Knowles said. “It also helps us to determine on average, what size conch is being collected by fishermen.”
Ms. Knowles said the Fisheries regulations established in 1986, as it pertains to the harvesting of conch, still applies today. Those regulations state as follows:
* No person shall take or have in his possession or sell any conch, the shell of which does not possess a well formed flaring lip (the part that flares away from the main body of the conch).
* The export of whole conch is prohibited. All conch must be exported as by-products e.g.. fritters, conch chowder. The by-products must not contain more than 40 percent conch meat.
* No person shall for commercial purposes export any conch product unless he possess a licence.
* Conch vendors should discard of empty shells in a proper manner.
Ms. Knowles said in the past, quite a number of local fishermen had violated these regulations, but since their office has been enforcing them in Grand Bahama, the number has decreased.
“We inspect conch vendors that come into Freeport that bring the conch shells on their trucks and who break out the conch meat to sell it,” she said. “We inspect them on a daily basis to make sure that they don’t have any undersized shells.”
Ms. Knowles said if they are caught with undersized shells, they will either be arrested or the shells will be confiscated and they are given a warning letter. If they have been warned before, they will probably be arrested, and according to Ms. Knowles, there have been cases where some persons were arrested.
“It is important for fishermen not to harvest the young conchs because if they continue to do so or fishermen continue to sell immature conchs, then soon we will not have any conch left to eat. That’s the bottom line,” she said.
By LISA S. KING, Freeport News Reporter
