I can relate to Martin's story. Not all that far from the south side of
the Sunshine Skyway where he is talking about, I monitor the population of
breeding and egg-laying of large (16 inch) Busycon contrarium, during the
winter low tides.
One day, I found an extra-large specimen I decided to take after the egg
laying was over with. I had seen hundreds of the large females, that take up
to ten years to get that large, without taking one. I was waiting for that
"special one."
     As I was making my way back to my truck, I noticed some guy with a gunny
sack filled with at least 20 of them. I asked him what he was doing with all
of those, and he said he was taking them home to boil out to "edge his
garden." He said he had gotten about that many every day for the past week.
When I asked him if he knew it took 10 years for them to get that big, and
they were egg- laying females, he got very upset. He asked what was I doing
with mine, and lying, I said I was out of work, and needed to feed my family.
He got very quiet, and handed me his bag to "help feed us."
      As soon as he drove away, I went out to deeper water and put them all
back. We both did a good thing that day. Another time, I saw a different guy
with 5 washtubs inside inner-tubes, tied together and floating along behind
him as he had them filled with the B. contrarium. He wouldn't even give me the
time of day, except to say "I've got a fishing license." He must've had 200 of
them.
      People don't realize once these females don't lay eggs there, no
offspring can return to lay eggs there either. They must think these mollusks
are just rocks with slime in them to get rid of, and make pretty garden
borders.
       In this case, over collecting can easily affect an area within years.
Obviously ignorance can play a large role, but 99 percent of the time I vote
for pollution as the cause, or sometimes when species are absent from an area
that seems healthy, maybe just the plain course of nature itself to rotate
species within our environment.
       Looking to the future, I'll bet global warming will have even more
species moving into northern habitats. Or might that be a little bit of what
we are just discussing/figuring out now?
 
Scott
Tampa