I do think we need to be far more proactive in defending the environment
that houses the shells we collect.  If COA members supported bag limits on
live shells they collected it might become obvious that the problem is not
with the responsible collector but with the the people who collect multiple
shells for garden decoration or strip the tidepools and mudflats for their
dinner.
I for one think COA should be a loud voice against beach renourishment and
perhaps support a bag limit of three per day except for species already
commercially regulated.
What does everyone else think?
 
Beth DeHaas
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-----Original Message-----
From: Lynn Scheu <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, November 26, 1998 6:47 AM
Subject: Re: [CONCH-L] Sanibel
 
 
>What I concluded:
>
>I think ascribing the absence of these species in Florida to the actions of
>shell collectors is a mistake, Mark.  There are all too many people out
>there ready to believe that shell collectors wear horns and a tail and
>chase down their victims with pitchforks.   Tucker, as others have said,
>made a longtime study of the reproductive habits of mollusks and was
>extremely interested in the effects that shell collectors had on them.  He
>concluded that they were not harmful to the numbers of any species.  He
>went on national TV to tell the world that.
>
>You mention also that none of these species was commercially harvested.
>That's true.  And there's a reason for it.  Commercial harvest is not
>practical unless the species occurs in large numbers. Which would seem to
>indicate that these species were never present in "commercial" numbers in
>the first place.  Furthermore, with wise management, many species seem to
>continue to survive and sustain their numbers in the face of commercial
>harvesting.   We eat scallops with abandon, and yet they are not extirpated
>from Florida waters.  They get scarce, the fishery of their species dies
>out, and their numbers increase again, if we haven't trashed their habitat,
>that is.
>
>And speaking of collecting for food, and commercial collecting, we have a
>serious problem of definition.  The collector seems to get a black eye,
>over and over again, because we use the word "collector" indiscriminately.
>We use it to apply to the ignorant tourist with his bag full of incipient
>garden edging or souvenirs for the family back home, to the tourist boat
>skipper making an extra few bucks by stripping the reef of Cyphoma gibbosum
>and urchins, to the commercial harvesters, to the folk picking the rocks
>clean of all forms of edible life, and to the scientific collector who
>takes one or two, and maybe (such a profligate waste!) a few for trade.
>Do we belong in this assemblage?   I don't think we do.
>
> If one searches through the literature for evidence of man's collecting
>being responsible for wiping out populations  (there is, by the way, no
>evidence of man wiping out marine molluscan species)  one finds that there
>is indeed such evidence.  But when one reads the actual studies in
>question, one finds that in every case "collector" is used to mean "shell
>gatherer" or "shell harvester,"  to apply to someone who takes all he can
>find for the dinner pot that night.   We shell collectors are not food
>gatherers, yet when these studies are cited, when they are applied, those
>doing the citing seem always to include us as well, sort of by definition
>of the word "collector."
>
>What I think, for what it's worth:
>
>If we are shell collectors . . . whether believers in taking only beach
>specimens or takers of live specimens . . .we must isolate and identify the
>risks to mollusks, on Sanibel or on this planet.   And in order for us to
>become part of the solution, we need to realize that we are not part of the
>problem!   We  need to find a way to separate ourselves from the tourists
>and omnivorous harvesters. . . separate ourselves in our own minds before
>we can possibly convince the rest of the world.
>
>If we keep accepting the "lumping" and absorbing the blame (while the
>polluters and developers and tourists and reef rapers take none of it)
>we'll allow ourselves to become scapegoats, as well as focal points for the
>blame. That will do no good whatever. The powers that be will just outlaw
>our activity and feel all warm-fuzzy and virtuous about it , while they
>remain wilfully blind to the real dangers because legislating against them
>is economically distateful or politically incorrect.  And business will go
>on as usual . (After all, they've gotten rid of those lousy shell
>collectors who kill all the shells and so mollusks are now safe for
>posterity.)  And by the time the regulatory world wakes up to its mistake,
>the damage to the mollusks may indeed be too great to repair.
>
>I submit that anyone who calls himself a shell collector needs to be a
>responsible one, and that includes understanding and being accountable for
>what we do, and it includes defending our actions through a clear
>conviction that what we do is right and good.  Instead of being apologists
>for the wrongs of other groups, let's stand up for our hobby and our
>passion.  And teach others about it and the good it does.  Let's lobby for
>bag limits to prevent over-"collecting"  of mollusks and other marine life,
>and for care of the environment it inhabits.
>
>Maybe we ought to talk about the good we do for a while?  Just to get it
>straight in our own minds?
>
>In the interest of getting the turkey into the oven,  I'll yield the oyster
>crate to the next speaker.
>
>Lynn Scheu
>