It all depends on the sustainability of the endangered animal. If it were something you could breed on a farm and harvest only the farmed ones for their meat, then sure, why not? But if it's something that can't be sustained in a domestic population very well, then there's a little bit of a problem.

As for conch specifically, I haven't researched (and don't really have time this morning but will look into it later) but I am assuming this is solely for the queen conch, not all conch? Are others, like the horse conch, endangered as well? I ask because I recall when I first visited Florida (living there now, but started visiting here when I was in grade school) we found three massive horse conchs out in the surf, and my great-aunt took them into her house, boiled them to get the meat out and make stew, and gave us the shells.
This sort of "wild harvest" I also don't have much of a problem with, because it is not taking in excess; it's when meats get harvested, then no one buys it and eventually some amount of that meat has to go into the garbage because it's no longer fit for consumption that it becomes wasteful. Of course, I feel that way about any kind of meat, not just endangered animals. There's no reason for us to be so wasteful of our resources, but people don't think about things that way anymore. They want overabundance, not just what they will use.

I was about to say it, and here you already did!

To me it's a very simple concept. The conch is getting over-harvested, and is looking like it needs to be left alone for a while. There's two choices. People can do that, or they can continue to harvest it until there aren't anymore and the species dies out completely. Since I see no reason for that to happen by pure greed, the harvesting should stop.

I never understand how people can get upset about these things either. Either you stop using them for food for a while and lose them, or you kill them off completely and lose them forever. Which do you choose? And once they're gone, what affect on the environment and ecosystem will it have? The comment of, "They always go overboard." is silly.

Hopefully, if they're declared an endangered species, people will just deal with it, not try to sneak and keep killing things.

Agreed. If its numbers are dwindling every year, people need to stop eating them. It would be narrow minded to keep eating it now, instead of finding a better way for them to be farm raised or time to raise their numbers. Because if they don't stop and say screw the endangered species, then there will be none at all for them to eat ever again, instead of just not having it for a time.

Looks like a business opportunity to me...Queen Conch Aqua-culture. Solves all the problems, no more legitimate need for wild harvest, steady or increased supplies of both conch meat and shels (often seen in tourist shops) and new jobs for people.

The trouble is they say a single Queen Conch needs 10 square meters of space in order to grow up healthy... otherwise they're stunted and too small to really count as worth the effort. Considering that you need a few to make a decent meal, it would require a LOT of undersea landscape to maintain a farm.

Meat is food. I like trying each unique flavor.

At the same time, I believe in conserving a species as best we can.

^.-.^

But as a dragon, I will never agree with those who are against the idea of consuming meat. =P

(vegetarian dragon sounds fucking amusing as hell, but no.)

Eh, to each their own. "As a dragon" you should be quite happy with some people not eating meat; it means there's less competition for you getting your own meat to eat. Carnivores usually prey on herbivores, right? Without a few herbivores, getting your meals would be a damn sight more difficult, wouldn't it?

Oh no, that's not what I mean at all. It's entirely free choice.

I just mean that they shouldn't ever be able to impose on my freedom to consume whatever I want. >>

You've still got a point though! ^^

Since I happen to live in Florida I find the news depressing but yea, its a simple choice of stop harvesting. In ten years they should recover, and by then we can create non torture farms that healthily raise the Queen Conch and other seafoods in safer ways.

As for the ethics of cooking it, I tend to stay with animals that are cheap to purchase, thus easy to sustain since the two are commonly interchangeable. I wouldn't cook any meat that could go endangered/is endangered but if its one that has a fair enough population that flux in size (crocodiles for example tend to stay noticeable in size of population, but its rare they get enough to have to invade city areas for food. Though once there was one in my neighbor's yard.) on the boom of the flux I wouldn't object to it. The main thing is not to kill em all off.

I just ate conch not too long ago at a sushi bar. I will say it was quite tasty. I had no idea that the species was being considered for protection. Good to know.
I'm sure they will come up with some sort of surimi substitute if tht happens, if they haven't already. It likely wouldn't be very hard to imitate.

Easy. Stop harvesting the wild ones for a while, and set up aquaculture farms to raise domestic conch for sale. :3

I personally haven't had any up close experience with it and I want to tread carefully here because of some controversial movements going on in response, but I do know a few countries are still whaling. Not entirely sure what they use them for because I don't think it's necessarily just for the meat, if at all. There have been a few movements made with the goal of stopping it, but one of them in particular is extremely controversial, to the point where most tend to side with the whaling crews rather than the "activists". I'd rather avoid mentioning it by name because of my personal opinions on them and because, with that in mind, I don't want to offend or upset anyone who does support them.

I think I know the country you're talking about, and I think it's as much a cultural thing as anything else. There's a yearly event where the water turns red from all the blood in it, and where Greenpeace and other groups go wild trying to hinder or stop the massacre. And that's what it is... a massacre. People think the book, A Modest Proposal" is creepy (its about eating the poor so they don't complain or take up so much space :P) but knowing something is fully intelligent and continuing to kill and eat it is appalling.

I agree that the hunting and killing of that particular animal is something that should be stopped (if only because it's a threatened/endangered species) but...I really don't want to discuss how I feel about groups like Greenpeace.

Well, in regards to the conch, I think the best option as encouraging aqua-culture, giving a few years for them to start to recover, and buffer that after a few years with very limited wild harvesting for a time. This will drive the price up, which should have two effects, more money for the harvesters and people raising them, and some decrease with people buying it. As the wild population recovers, you increase the limits slowly until you figure out what is a sustainable amount to harvest yearly, and tell those raising them what they should be looking to meet in terms of numbers.

Conchs are going to be one of those more difficult animals to raise for food. I don't know how likely the concept would be in terms of just getting some young conchs started and releasing them, you'd probably have to have a particular set up in the ocean itself to do so properly, and there's still a risk that a high population for this in one area could cause issues with the species. But growing and releasing is something we do with trout, so maybe they could figure it out.

With hoofstock animals however, or mammals in general, there's usually a little bit of a leg up in ease unless if you have a sensitive species like...Bongo antelope, which can catch the most absurd things and keel over. Scimitar Horned Oryx are extinct in the wild for example, and endangered. Yet, before Texas recently banning hunting of ANY endangered species, there were ranchers with guided(not canned) hunts on hundreds, if not thousands of acres, who had thousands of heads of the species. Now, the ranchers don't know what they are going to do, because the only way they were able to increase their populations to such numbers and be able to support that many animals, was because of the hunting. In cases like that, I find that it is completely acceptable to hunt/eat such animals, because of the rancher's success. Which ranching like that is what saved the American Bison. And careful hunting in South Africa of White Rhinos is saving the species(the people are more likely to protect something as a resource, they guard against poachers, and healthy adults and young are not taken).

So endangered species can be saved and maintained with various ways of marketing them in many cases and in various ways even while being endangered. It just takes logic and problem solving.

An easy solution to both problems would be contained farming of the conch for production purposes. Not only would this forego having to give up a delectable cultural food for the islands, but would leave the wild populations as an almost untouched species for food consumption, leaving the wild populations to restore themselves to a healthy number. Plus, job generation.

But.. yeah. Hopefully someone will get to that.

I can't really say much more than agree.

The obvious answer would simply be to stop harvesting these wild-caught Conches.
Perhaps farming such aqua-marines would be a reasonable approach.

Although this leaves me to wonder what kind of economical impact it would have on the small businesses and the member of families that rely on such resources. How would the local governments approach to regulating such matters?

Anyhow, I wouldn't know much on such matters.

Breed them, and farm them like cattle. Beef is one of the most consumed meats in the world, and the cow doesn't look like it's going endangered any time soon.