This past Saturday was the launch of the national Conchservation campaign, as part of One Eleuthera’s Earth Day event at the Rock Sound Ocean Hole. CEI had researchers and staff from Educational Programs to man a booth aimed at educating the public on queen conch life history and reproductive ecology.
The booth was also manned by a group of 8 students from the Deep Creek Middle School. They talked to community members about the important of saving conch, so that we have conch in the future! CEI and One Eleuthera are only two parties in the team effort of Conchservation- other partners include Bahamas National Trust, with Jared Dillet spearheading the campaign, BREEF, Friends of the Environment, the Shedd Aquarium (Chicago, IL), the Moore Foundation, Community Conch, and the Department of Marine Resources. One main focus of the campaign is to end the harvest of juvenile conch, and the idea was heavily supported by the local communities in South Eleuthera.