Regional Queen Conch Fisheries Management Plan – Executive Summary
Queen conch (Strombus gigas) resources occur throughout the Caribbean Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean northward to Bermuda, but populations in certain areas are decidedly overfished and in need of management. Conch are edible marine gastropods that move inshore and aggregate along areas of the insular platform to spawn. Therefore, they are extremely vulnerable to harvest especially during the spawning season. To curb overfishing (defined as a population level that is below 20 percent of the unfished spawning stock biomass per recruit) of queen conch the CFMC has proposed a management program designed to reduce the mortality on spawning adults and prevent the harvest of immature individuals. The management program contains provisions for total or areal closures, but favors effort reduction as the socio-economic impacts are less severe. The program would: (1) impose a 9-inch overall
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