Don Barclay wrote:
>
> OK, OK, being chronically politically incorrect, allow me to side
> with Andrew.  Everybody on this list knows that Andrew's first
> paragraph is indisputably correct.  So how do you differentiate
> between "dead collected" and "live collected?"  Well, that may
> not exactly be the problem.  The problem may just be "kneejerk
> bureaucracy," as Andrew pointed out.
>
> There is a word they threw in when they named CITES that is
> fairly important when you are discussing endangered and threat-
> ened animals.  The word is TRADE.  Even I have to agree that
> there are some species that warrant the guilty-until-proven-innocent
> FWS attitude: the truly endangered ones, like the California condor,
> the white rhino, and any others where the loss of a single individual
> is particularly significant.  This DOES NOT include Strombus gigas,
> nor does it include any of the tridacnids.  If you differentiate between
> "endangered" and "threatened," and they do, then you certainly do
> not have to give them the same legislative treatment.  Preventing
> the killing, possession, or trade in the endangered animals may be
> completely appropriate, but even the powers that be recognized
> that TRADE was the activity that would need to be addressed by
> this congress.

I agree.  The Florida Horse Conch (Pleuroploca gigantea) eats Strombus
gigas and other shells.  The Horse Conch will leave a nice shell
behind.  When people collected them for food, they will punture a hole
in the second to the last whorl so it is easily taken out.

It is silly to place S. gigas on the Cities list.  I can see why a rare
tiger should be on the list.

One time my brother was out in the water and the Florida Marine Patrol
pulled up.  My brother surfaced knowing the officer was there.  My
brother had a nice Queen Conch that was just easten by a Horse Conch.
When he asked the officer "Can I keep this shell? It is dead and there
is nothing in it".  The officer replied, "You better put that shell back
right now".

By the way, I heard that Pleuroploca gigantea may not be a Pleuroploca.
Has it been placed in a new genus?

Andrew D.
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