Tag Archives: conch
Conch is Big Business but Still a Mystery
On a blustery November day, in choppy waters somewhere off the western shore of the Island, Capt. Otto Osmers winched in his first conch pot of the day. It was a disappointing haul: only one conch was a keeper. “They’re such a weird animal,” said Mr. Osmers. “You’d think that, since they’re just a snail, they’d be easier to figure out.” At 22, Mr. Osmers is one of the youngest captains on Island, having saved up his teenage shellfishing earnings to purchase his uncle Tom Osmers’s old boat, A. D. Thor. When the weather is good during the active spring and fall conch season, he might spend all day on the water, pulling up conch pots, sorting out catches and refilling the mesh bait bags with chunks of horseshoe crab and herring. >click to read< 15:47
Conch May Be Doomed—by the Massachusetts DMF Target of Females
The sun permanently setting on a near half century old fishery processor in the nation’s lead commercial fisheries revenue port is not a pretty sight to contemplate. But it is real. And contemplated by a significant processor particularly well run key component to the channeled conch fishery supporting dozens of boats in Southern New England waters. New fishing rules increased the minimum legal landing size by 1/8” chute gauge width size bi-annually since 2019, each time reducing the commercial landings by 120,000 pounds—and revenues lost in that time over $500,000. The next increase is slated for 2023; independent marine economists say “the once $6 million annual fishery will be dropped from the recent annual landings of 806,000 pounds to about 600,000 pounds. Twenty boats will no longer economically function. And the fish processor loading dock will become part time. Or close. Or move out of state where species conservation and scientific awareness, and the fishery economics, will be in far better balance.” > click to read < 17:19
Right whale protection regs leave Cape fishermen feeling trapped
His house on the quarter-acre lot is nearly surrounded by gravel, with bright yellow and black fishing traps neatly stacked all around. Tolley is gearing up for the fishing season, is headed for a hip replacement in a month, but that wasn’t his only concern. New state regs require that he fit the buoy lines on all 1,200 of his lobster, conch and black sea bass traps with special sleeves that release under the pressure of an adult whale. “I don’t want to see a right whale entangled,”,,, He worries about the financial pressures imposed on him and other fishermen by regulations >click to read< 13:42
MPA’s – Conch herds face death by old age as young molluscs disappear
The queen of the sea, a monster mollusk that inspired its own republic in the American state of Florida, is in trouble. A marine preserve in the Bahamas, famed for its abundance of queen conches, is missing something too: young conches. Researchers studying the no-take park (where no collection of marine animals is allowed) off Exuma in the Bahamas, one of hundreds throughout the Caribbean, found that over the last two decades, the number of young has sharply declined as adult conches steadily matured and died off. The discovery also raises questions about the effectiveness of marine preserves, long viewed as a solution to reviving overfished stocks. If one of the Caribbean’s oldest and best marine preserves isn’t working to replenish one of its biggest exports – now regulated as tightly as lobster – what does that mean for other preserves and how they’re managed? click here to read the story 11:33
Vineyard Fishermen Warn of Ruin If Conch Rule Enacted
Martha’s Vineyard commercial fishermen spent more than two and a half hours Wednesday letting the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries know what they think of 18 proposed rule updates and new regulations. Some of the changes are minor tweaks to clarify existing rules, but others, if enacted, would affect the Vineyard’s fishing industry more significantly. Island speakers vehemently opposed a draft proposal to increase the minimum size of knobbed and channeled whelk, generally called conch, by three sixteenths of an inch in 2017. “That is a horrifying number,” said Tom Turner, a longtime Edgartown fisherman. “You’re guaranteeing the death of a fishery, and that would happen within two years of a three-sixteenth increase.” Continue reading the story here 15:16
