702 A. Kough et al.


fitness. Maintaining high abundances of a species that is relatively easy to exploit is a challenge for conch fisheries management (Prada et al., 2017). The decline in the queen conch abundance has been well documented as the species plays an important role in the lifestyle, heritage and econ- omy of countries within its range, including The Bahamas where the consensus of fishers is that the population is de- creasing (Kough et al., 2019). Despite decades of protection in Florida, USA, populations have been slow to recover from heavy exploitation and are hindered by depensatory breed- ing effects because low adult density inhibits spawning (Delgado & Glazer, 2020). The metapopulation structure of the queen conch has become fragmented as abundance has diminished (Vaz et al., 2022), which further hinders re- plenishment because larval sources become scarce and re- cruitment sporadic or eliminated by high fishing pressure (Kough et al., 2019). The queen conch is included on CITES Appendix II and international trade is regulated (Prada et al., 2017). Although the species has not yet been assessed for the IUCN Red List, it was protected as a threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act in 2024 (NOAA, 2024). In some countries, conch exports have been banned, fisheries have been closed, are no longer viable or are increasingly at risk of failing (Stoner et al., 2019). The long-term ecological consequences of removing a major herbivore such as the queen conch from Caribbean marine ecosystems remain unknown (Tewfik, 2014); thus, strategies that reverse the trajectory of decline are of great interest for both fisheries and conservation.


Queen conch aquaculture reviewed


Since the early 1980s, considerable efforts have been made to raise juveniles from queen conch egg masses in captivity (Davis & Cassar, 2020), leading to many attempts to supply animals for food and for restocking. These aquaculture ac- complishments have been reported by the media as a tool for the restoration and rebuilding of declining queen conch populations (Supplementary Table 1). A majority of the inhabitants of the small island nations


where the queen conch is harvested and where aquaculture has been proposed for rebuilding conch populations rely upon local and international media sources for scientific knowledge, rather than peer-reviewed research papers. Media monitoring services are designed for businesses or marketing and public relations professionals to analyse published content from media outlets, including online and print news, broadcasts and podcasts. Meltwater (Meltwater News US Inc., Chicago, USA) is a media moni- toring service that scans more than 270,000 sources for user input keywords to aggregate content. For this study, we used Meltwater Services to compile articles that contained the keywords ‘queen conch’AND(‘aquaculture’OR‘hatchery’


OR ‘nursery’ OR ‘farm’) and that were published during 1 January 2013–31 May 2024. Reported media coverage was vetted to ensure that each individual story featured queen conch aquaculture and not the keywords dispersed across unrelated content. Travel-centric articles that featured visits to the Turks and Caicos Conch Farm were treated separately (Supplementary Table 2). Each individual articlewas reviewed for accuracy, andquoteswereretainedthatpromotedaqua- culture as a viable method to repopulate the queen conch. The resulting database of unique articles is provided in Supplementary Table 1 andsummarizedin Table 1. In the majority of unique stories, queen conch aquacul-


ture is reported as a tool to rebuild populations (Table 1). The most common descriptive effect of aquaculture upon queen conch populations was to ‘restore’ (19 unique articles; Table 1)by ‘releasing’ (eight unique articles; Table 1) cul- tured individuals. However, despite decades of experimen- tation, neither commercial nor conservation aquaculture has proven successful for field repopulation, as comprehen- sively reviewed by Stoner (2019). The largest hurdle to conservation aquaculture of the


queen conch remains the high natural mortality rate (.95% annually) in natural juvenile nurseries and outplant areas (Stoner, 2019). Attempts to increase survival rates by raising animals for a longer duration so that they reach larger sizes before release are constrained by the increased costs of spe- cialized feed and decreased viability of the cultured animals as defects accumulate and fitness is reduced (Stoner & Glazer, 1998; Stoner, 2019). Aquacultured animals exhibit physical features that make them more vulnerable once they are outplanted into an unprotected, natural setting, in- cluding decreased shell strength, mass and spine growth (Stoner, 2019). Additionally, conch exhibit behavioural def- icits, including a decreased propensity to burrow, low anti- predator responses and an inability to identify proper foods (Stoner, 2019). Survival is further modulated by the chal- lenges of locating appropriate outplanting sites, providing available nursery habitat, identifying the proper release time, and controlling density-dependent effects on growth and predation (Stoner, 2019). However, even when the release site and season are optimized, mortality remains high (Stoner, 2019). Despite efforts to maximize their like- lihood, high survival rates remain unlikely.


Challenges


The low rates of survival from post-settlement to near maturity, when viewed alongside large-scale fishery extrac- tion and low aquaculture production, emphasize that with current techniques it is neither commercially feasible to re- place wild harvest nor ecologically feasible to restore queen conch populations using conservation aquaculture. Both stock enhancement and restoration aquaculture remain inviable for the queen conch based on ecological and


Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 700–709 © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324001443


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