The rescue mission began with a splash. Flippered and masked snorkelers rolled off a boat anchored near Marathon and into chest-high water. It didn’t take long to spot the target.
“This is what we’re looking for,” said Gabriel Delgado, hoisting a nearly foot-long shell, all elegant whorls and spires, above the lapping waves. He tilted it toward the sun, revealing the sunset colors inside — a Florida queen conch.
Delgado, a research associate with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, was leading a mission to find and relocate the iconic animal to greener — and cooler — pastures, where they might stand a better chance of mating.
After a one-two punch from nasty hurricanes, Irma in 2017 and Ian in 2022, the Florida population of the mollusk took a nosedive. In 2017, before the hurricane, scientists estimated there were about 700,000 adult conch along the Florida reef tract. In the most recent survey, in 2022, that number dropped to 126,000.
Numbers like that spell out one thing to scientists like Delgado. This population needs to make more babies, ASAP. At least, if the namesake of the independent island community of the Florida Keys — the Conch Republic — is not just a slogan for flags and bumper stickers.
But shallow water conchs appear to have a serious problem of sexual dysfunction. #florida #floridakeys #conch #climate #ocean #temperature #southflorida
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✍️: Alex Harris
📸: @varela_miami19, @esthervideo