Rosemary Payne wrote:
> Does anyone have any information on this?  I'd really appreciate it.
>
> I was in Thailand in December, collecting shells on a beach, and was challenged by another visitor who felt that shells should not be collected but should be left for others to enjoy.  I said that I thought that for most active beaches - which this one is - collecting in moderation probably had little effect on the shells available to others the next day because shells are continually arriving and being broken up.   This was met with disbelief; as I didn't know of any research that had set out to tackle the question, I had a first try by collecting 5 taxa systematically from the hight-tide line and the upper intertidal zone of the same beach every morning for the three weeks that I was there.
>

I wouldn't worry much about collecting rollers. They won't last
long, especially on a tourist beach with traffic, sun, and the
mechanical beach cleaners found everywhere these days.

Locally (SoFla), we are more concerned about the dredgers
destroying millions of live mollusks including the protected S.
gigas, in the name of "beach renourishment".

m

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