As with Climate Change, politicians & managers have their heads in the sand, suffocating the rest of us. Wise Up!!
A dose of Common Sense is Required.
A small farmer, with 5 cows: a bull, a heifer & 3 young calves each a year apart. He needs to feed his family.
Does he kill the sexually mature Mother & Father? If so, he must wait for the now young to mature before he can restore the herd size. Then if he maintains the same policy of killing the mature animals, how long will he maintain his small herd? Not long, it is that simple.

Turtles & Rays, that eat conch, given the choice, do not go after the thick lipped, hard to crush the shell of mature animals. This is management, as the thick lip indicates an older, wiser animal that has survived many years of predators & is sexually mature, producing many egg masses per year.

Allowing the taking of only thick lipped sexually mature animals is Bad Management, increasing the pressures on any population. Particularly a dwindling population.
Bahamas needs to:

1. Outlaw use of Compressors or Scuba for conch harvesting, by anyone.
2. Place a Moratorium on conch meat export.
3. Limit the number of animals taken per individual, per day for visiting cruisers.
4. Limit the volume of animals taken by commercial fishermen for National Consumption.
5. Establish a No Take Season during breeding periods.
6. Establish a rule that it is unlawful to take animals with greater than 3/16" flaring lip.
7. Establish No Diving For Conch zones near shore, to encourage Hooking for Conch by older fishermen.
8. Establish No-Take Management Zones up-current of areas in need of repopulating.
9. Enforce such rules with heavy penalties for local & foreigners.

Most Importantly, learn from the errors in management by others acting too late with too little. Chile with their Abalone population, Florida with Conch, Jamaica & many Carib nations with Conch.The scientific data is available, today Ignorance is No Excuse. Conch culturing like with Grouper & Snapper culturing is possible, practiced in various countries, it is an alternative but not the only answer. Insight & Management Is.

As with Climate Change, politicians & managers have their heads in the sand, suffocating the rest of us. Wise Up!!
A dose of Common Sense is Required.
A small farmer, with 5 cows: a bull, a heifer & 3 young calves each a year apart. He needs to feed his family.
Does he kill the sexually mature Mother & Father? If so, he must wait for the now young to mature before he can restore the herd size. Then if he maintains the same policy of killing the mature animals, how long will he maintain his small herd? Not long, it is that simple.

Turtles & Rays, that eat conch, given the choice, do not go after the thick lipped, hard to crush the shell of mature animals. This is management, as the thick lip indicates an older, wiser animal that has survived many years of predators & is sexually mature, producing many egg masses per year.

Allowing the taking of only thick lipped sexually mature animals is Bad Management, increasing the pressures on any population. Particularly a dwindling population.
Bahamas needs to:
1. Outlaw use of Compressors or Scuba for conch harvesting, by anyone.
2. Place a Moratorium on conch meat export.
2. Limit the number of animals taken per individual, per day for visiting cruisers.
3. Limit the volume of animals taken by commercial fishermen for National Consumption.
4. Establish a No Take Season during breeding periods.
5. Establish a rule that it is unlawful to take animals with greater than 3/16" flaring lip.
6. Establish No Diving For Conch zones near shore, to encourage Hooking for Conch by older fishermen.
7. Establish No-Take Management Zones up-current of areas in need of repopulating.
8. Enforce such rules with heavy penalties for local & foreigners.

Most Importantly, learn from the errors in management by others acting too late with too little. Chile with their Abalone population, Florida with Conch, Jamaica & many Carib nations with Conch.The scientific data is available, today Ignorance is No Excuse. Conch culturing like with Grouper & Snapper culturing is possible, practiced in various countries, it is an alternative but not the only answer. Insight & Management Is.

Managing any resource, be it water to animal or mineral, is to recognize the limit of what amount allows that stock to replace itself (the budget) and stay within those parameters as a knowledgeable harvester.
Managing a resource requires effort, respect & funding, without these the illicit nature of any individual can mushroom into a greedy thrashing of the resource & everything associated or near it. Look at the gold rush in Ecuador & the resulting damage to the local rain forest.
PS.: Our children are the resources of our future.
The 80% is recoverable with discipline. The nature of conch growth, with it's current loving floating larvae, insinuates that what is happening with local breeders, as well as in the outer islands, will affect the growing grounds downstream. So pressure on the breeding resource by Haitian & Dominican Republic poaching, has an effect on the middle & northern islands.

Quit taking the mature breeders, a thick lipped conch is mature & she will lay many egg masses a year. Every trip I make I see many many pick-up trucks loaded up with mature thick lipped conch in the hundreds!!! You wont get milk if you kill the dairy cow.
Management is simple:
1. Cut back on number of legal commercial conch fishermen, those catching to sell, not the guy providing conch for his family.
2. Monitor & penalize if you are selling without a commercial license.
3. Set a Standard, Enforce & Adhere to it. Size & Quantity is easiest & most common.
I would add a short "shell thickness measure device" made from plastic, carried while you dive, if lip is thicker than 5/16" (or1/2") leave it to produce more conch for you later.
4. Educate, educate. a conch takes 4-5 years for sexual maturity! Longer than a cow's 2yrs. Mature conch can live 50+ yrs evidenced by a very very thick lip).
As a conch grows, they are creating their colorful shell on the inside where the meat is not on the outside, thus their living space inside the shell grows smaller as they age.
An old very thick lipped mature conch will have tough hard meat from many many years of dragging that shell around. she is reproducing, let her go.

On-island Bahamians need to quit looking in the mirror and feeling sorry for yourselves as the world passes you by. It will & is.
All islands have the same challenges, nothing new. Research what others have done to resolve these, while reviewing what mistakes were made by others.
Foreign located Bahamians would love to come Home, if they had opportunities to be contributors to society, as they are wherever they are now.
Break the mirror, no bad luck!

That 'foreigner' has been a resident of Freeport for over 35+ years, employing/training many (100's) Bahamians in the process. Disrespect is not becoming of your understandable concerns.

So now I must be certain my visiting friends must have a return ticket to their point of entry (Nassau here) while they cruise the out islands with me? If we cruise to Freeport, can that 'Bimini return to Nassau' ticket be exchanged for an equal value in the 'Freeport return to Nassau' ticket?
Not conducive nor convenient for visitor inter-island travels. I imagine the out-island communities will feel deprived.
No cash is a fair warning sign, did they not have credit cards? I do not travel with much cash, using atms as I go.

A very interesting, though simplified, response to a common issue throughout the world.
We will never get out of this pattern by ignoring it & repeating it. https://www.facebook.com/jerseydemic/vi…
Wise up Nation!

The problem is that Government or GBPA will not disclose the True 'cost' or 'benefit' of Freeport to The Bahamian economy. Any whistle blowers with that information out there?
If the economy of Freeport fails, it is a major 'cost' & reason to do away with HCA, so do not expect government to do more than marginal. It baffles me what the PA gets beyond job security, nice retainer & location for a wintering tax-free fiefdom.
(The tax-free concept is longtime lost with the high duties, property tax, VAT & expensive business fees.)

I have spent many hours in ER s' with associate's injuries, only in South Americas far-out-country hospitals have I experienced anything similar to what this lady did in GB!
The remote mountain villages of Peru (a very poor 3rd world country) do better than this!
You are only 40 minutes from US, you have no excuse of lack of Supplies, nor access to Equipment or Education, only excessive poor attitude, attitude & more attitude... It's no wonder most Bahamians that can fly to Florida. Pity the poor man.

If you ever want to know about any culture, see how they treat their sick, injured & elderly. Those well educated Cuban Govt. doctors & nurses sure make sense...