Horse conch species population drops over last decade

The horse conch species has been in a steady drop in population over the last decade due to human activity.

The horse conch is known as the giant band shell has been Florida’s state shell since 1969.

WINK News talked to one of the scientists studying the species to see how vulnerable it might be.

Dr. Gregory Herbert, an Associate Professor of Paleobiology in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida said, “So it’s a species that it’s one of the largest snails in the world, I have one right here, it gets huge. The maximum length is around two feet in length.”

Dr. Herbert studies the vulnerable horse conch species.

“We need to be a lot more cautious about this particular species because of its intrinsic risk of extinction,” Herbert said.

Instead of the species living 70 to 80 years, like scientists once believed, the species lives maybe 20 years.

Dr. Herbert and his team discovered is the snail doesn’t mature until relatively late in life.

“So the number of years of reproduction that the horse conch has is actually instead a having, you know, dozens of years of reproduction. In some cases, it might just have one or two per animal. But the amount of offspring that are going to replace the ones that humans kill or collect is actually pretty low,” Herbert said.

Pollution, habitat loss, and the overharvesting of sea life are some of the reasons for the species not living as long as they usually would.

“The ones you find out in the wild today are much smaller and probably younger, which means they’re not living as long. Decrease in size is one early warning indicator that a population is about to collapse,” Herbert said.

Scientists like Herbert believe that but need more data to prove the horse conch is dying off. And the impact of that is the sea life they feed off will multiply.

“The horse conch is an apex predator, so they control and regulate populations of their prey. So whatever happens to the horse conch will affect the rest of the ecosystem,” Herbert said.

Herbert said what they need right now is more research and more people monitoring this species. But right now there’s no money to do that.

herbert and his students will continue to do offshore sampling to try and map the populations along Florida’s coastline.