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| These mature conch shells were at a Hog Cay trailhead. Note how the shell lip wraps away from the spiral core? This is the sign of a matured, harvestable conch. |
Is there any food more quintessentially Bahamian than the conch (also known as the lambi)? Cracked conch. Conch fritters. Conch salad. Conch souse. Conch curry…. Not only is it the most served food for tourists and locals alike in Nassau’s bustling Potter’s Cay stands, about 600,000 pounds leaves the country every year, most of it purchased by U.S. importers. While my initial experiences with this gastropod were initially underwhelming…
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| Wayne bagging mature conch. Any immature ones we returned to the reproduction pool. |
Then I complained about my inability to find them, but was frustrated by my attempts to extract and clean them, until….
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| Wayne knocking the conch… punching a hole in the shell is in the right spot is the first step. |
s repetitive hands-on experience. As when it comes to using a hammer with precision, to his dismay, Wayne became the designated conch knocker, though he’s…
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| Wayne slides a knife in the hole to release the conch’s hold to its shell. |
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| Wayne then uses pliers to pull the conch from its shell. |
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| Everything ready for harvest, except the poor little lambis. |
“In the 1800s, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), named after the French word passager for “passing by,” was the most abundant bird in the world. It accounted for more than a quarter of all birds in North America, with an estimated population of 3 billion to 5 billion. The species traveled in enormous flocks, as wide as a mile and many miles long, and could strip an area of nuts within days. When the last passenger pigeon died in 1914,”– AAAS, the non-profit science society, and its international journal, Science.
Conch has been legally exported from the Bahamas since 1992; most of it’s purchased by US importers. About 600,000 pounds leaves the country every year, which only increases fishing pressure on our dwindling conch stocks.
