Fishing and marketing of queen conch (Strombus gigas) in Barbados

I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 GENERAL BIOLOGY 1 1.2 QUEEN CONCH FISHERIES IN THE WIDER CARIBBEAN 2 1.3 MANAGEMENT OF QUEEN CONCH IN THE WIDER CARIBBEAN 5 1.4 QUEEN CONCH IN BARBADOS 6 1.5 PURPOSE OF STUDY 7 2.0 METHODOLOGY 8 2.1 CONCH FISHING 8 2.2 CONCH MARKETING 8 2.3 BIOLOGICAL DATA 8 2.4 DATA HANDLING AND ANALYSIS 10 3.0 RESULTS 11 3.1 FISHERY 11 3.1.1 Fishers 11 3.1.2 Fishing grounds 11 3.1.3 Landing sites 15 3.1.5 Harvest season and fishing effort 17 3.1.6 Catch 18 3.1.7 Catch per trip 22 3.1.8 Annual harvest 23 3.2 POST HARVEST SECTOR 24 3.2.1 Processing catch 24 3.2.2 Sale of conch meat 25 3.2.3 Sale of conch shells 26 4.0 DISCUSSION 28 4.1 THE FISHERY 28 4.2 ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION AND TRADE 31 4.3 MANAGEMENT 31 4.4 CONCLUSION 32 5.0 REFERENCES 33 APPENDIX 1 36 APPENDIX 2 38 APPENDIX 3 39