Jennifer Doerr, Ron Hill, and Thomas Minello

The queen conch is a large marine gastropod ranging throughout the Caribbean to South America and southern Florida and is an extremely valuable fishery resource, second only to the spiny lobster. Unfortunately, queen conch are now considered a species of concern due to region-wide stock depletions. A variety of factors may be involved, although few studies have addressed issues specific to the ecology of shallow-water habitats surrounding the U.S. Virgin Islands. Queen conch population levels in these areas have been steadily declining and show few signs of recovery.

Study areas of St. John, Fish (left) and No Name (right) Bays showing habitat classifications, locations of acoustic hydrophones, and acoustic tag detection zones.

Juvenile queen conch showing an identification tag and an acoustic tag.

This project seeks to examine the population status, growth, mortality, and migration rates of juvenile and adult conch in two bays bordering the Virgin Islands National Park on St. John, Fish and No Name (Saba) Bays. Beginning in May 2005, field trips have been conducted three times per year during the spring and summer months. Activities on each sampling trip include tagging individual conch, measuring environmental characteristics (e.g., water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, depth), conducting transect surveys, setting up and testing acoustic hydrophone arrays, downloading acoustic and temperature data, identifying and quantifying benthic habitats where conch are located, and attaching acoustic tags to several queen conch in each bay. Through the use of acoustic tracking equipment we will be able to monitor the long-term movement and migration patterns of queen conch as they mature and utilize different areas of each bay.