When I lived in Sarasota, I was only a couple of blocks from the best place
on the whole coast to collect Melongena corona.  At this place for years I
collected 100's if not more of this specie.  I never hurt the population
one bit, as I only took sizes from 3 inches and up, and of these only the
best, in turn I left to lay eggs ( which there were always many cases
there).  So it is not how many you take, it is how you take them, I thinmk
there was only me and another woman that knew of this spot, surely she did
not take to many either or there would not be as many as there were every
time I went there.  Now 20 years later, since the pass has been closed to
build condominums, Not only has this place  no longer shells but the whole
bay has mostly been wiped out of shells that were plentiful.  Don't always
blame the shell collector when you cannot find shells.  In fact the nice
place I went to is now a stinking mess, closing the pass stopped the flow
of water and all the bad dumps of sewage in the bay, now has killed almost
everything in the bay.  Next time I am there, I will have to see if Busycon
aspinosum has survived this mess.  Also in this area were super large
Pleuroploca gigantea and Pleuroploca reevei, many Busycon contrarium and
lots of Nassa, along with many kinds of Clams, all of this now gone.  So
yes, you can take 1000's of any specie out of any area, if you know what
you are doing.  In fact when I was there one day ( will not talk about the
religon of these people) but they were talking everything that moved.  I
had to get in front of them and fill my bucket and dump it in deep water
and go back for more to again fill my bucket and do this over and over to
keep them from destroying the area.  I was told by them that I should not
be taking their shells and putting them where they could not get at them.
You can bet on it, "IF" there were a 1000 Cypraea leucodon in Dons' area,
he did not get them all, and "IF" they are there at all, since they are a
deep water shell, I really doubt if 1000 of them would have come into
shallow water for him to collect, but then again, maybe they knew he would
be comming and they all came at one time for him to collect.  Sure would be
nice if  Arts' Sthenorhytis pernobilis would someday (while I was at the
beach) come out of the deep water about 1000 of them so I could have my
pick, I likely would get quite a few of them.  Now none of this will ever
happen, so if you are collecting shallow water shells, take the best and
leave the not so good one, they lay as many eggs as the good ones, and you
will always have a good place to get more when you want them, I traded
almost all of what I collected, but also I ate the animal of almost all
that I collected. even the lowly Cocina makes good soup if you have enough
of them, and they are at the beach by the 10s' of 1000s' and I doubt if a
collector will ever wipe these out.  Think how many shells are destroyed by
the dredgeing for scallops, funny no one has complained about this!  Tons
of scallops are taken each year for you to eat, do you think about where
all the sea food you eat comes from??  Also I put a net in the water behind
my house, and when I cleaned the shells I put the "livers" on the net and
had my pick of tasty blue crabs also when they came to eat the left overs.
Enough and there is a lot more.  John Bernard