Day 2 of Conching and Sting Rays- Conch Details!

Hey! 

This morning, on a beautiful Bahamian day, we started our morning with exercise, which consisted of a feisty match of water polo. The group was divided into two teams. We all gathered by the flagpole – as we usually do – and headed towards a hidden cove not far from our dorms. The air was filled with energy as both teams fought for victory. Some of the players, like Alfonso and Donny, even gained battle wounds from playing aggressively in the shallow, rocky waters. Don’t worry! They’re okay (and proud of their wounds).

Stan the Man shows us all a thing or two about water polo!

Alfonso and Donny battled it out in the shallows defending the water polo goal

After morning exercise, we finished up our chores and gathered at the mess hall for a bountiful breakfast of eggs, English muffins, and sausage. Breakfast was a nice break for our group, preparing us for the long day ahead.

After breakfast we split into two groups, the same groups as the previous day. The blog post before this presented a day in the life of the sting ray research team, while both of us will use this post to talk about the adventures of the conch research team.

The conch research team visited 3 different location sites: Boys Dorm Beach, Sunset Beach, and Plum Creek. At each site we set up transect lines consisting of a plot of shore 100 meters long by 18 meters wide. We dispersed ourselves evenly throughout this area, looked for queen conchs – both dead and alive – and tallied the numbers. We did this in order to understand the changes in Eleuthera’s Queen Conch population over the past years.

Liz leads the boys on the transect line

Isaac and Dal record the data from shore

It wasn't a live conch, but there was a cool brittle star inside!

At the end of a successful conching day on a secluded beach in the Bahamas!

This study has been a tradition of the Hawken Marine Science trip for 2 years previous. Due to overfishing of the Queen Conchs, the population of them in the Bahamas – and subsequently in the rest of the Caribbean – has been dwindling significantly. Although attempts to set up Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in regions such as the Florida Keys have been made, little increase in the population has been observed. This is mainly due to the fact the majority of Queen Conchs found in the rest of the Caribbean originate from the Bahamas, an area in which Queen Conchs are being heavily overfished. One of the main reasons for overfishing is due to the popularity in consumption of Queen Conchs, a staple in Bahamian culture.

The results of the Day 1 conch research team were representative of the popular belief that the conch population has been reaching a steep decline in recent years. Areas that were previously abundant in Queen Conchs were found to be devoid of living conch. This is not, however, a foreshadowing of conch extinction because the consequent research group (from today) was able to find 25 live conchs at one of their research sites. Therefore, our cumulative research proves our hypothesis that the Queen Conch population could reach extinction in a decade or so. This would not only prove to be extremely detrimental to the health of the ocean’s reef ecosystem, but it would also cause a drop in revenue produced by local Bahamian fisheries.

In addition to researching the Queen Conch populations, we also learned about the anatomy and physiology of these amazing creatures. With this acquired knowledge, each one of us should be able to identify a queen conch in each stage of its life – veliger, juvenile, sub-adult, and adult.

On another note, the Day 1 conch research team switched their focus to sting ray research for today, while the Day 1 sting ray research team switched to conch research. Both teams set records in their own respects; the Day 2 sting ray research team breaking the all-time record of sting ray catches in one day, and the Day 2 conch research team catching many more live conch than the day before. The Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) sting ray research team is one of the largest sting ray research programs in the country, so it was an honor to work alongside this highly advanced group of scientists. Today’s group caught 10 sting rays, 5 of which were new and we got to tag!

The students worked with the researchers using nets to surround the ray

Once caught, we brought the rays to shore to collect measurements and tag them

Here's a ray we set free after capturing!

To conclude the evening, we gathered in the Island School’s presentation room to watch a PBS Nova documentary on blue-hole diving. Not only did it prove to us the potential dangers of diving in general, but it also illuminated a new way to discover the secrets of our world’s past.

We’re having a great time down here and are looking forward to the week ahead.

Thinking of ya!

Eidan, Harrison, and the rest of the Marine Science crew