Posted on 11/03/2010 11:12:22 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
BONITA SPRINGS — Fighting conchs are going down swinging on the beaches of Bonita Springs.
Hundreds of the dead and dying conchs have littered the shores of the beach during low tide over the past few days, grabbing the attention of tourists and researches alike.
“We’ve been walking up and down the beach, and we’ve been seeing a lot of these fighting conch. Look they’re right there,” Angie Verdone said pointing into the water just off the shore on the north side of Bonita Beach. “They’re like in groups, they’re all over the beach.”
Scientists are testing water off the beach, trying to determine what is causing the conchs to get stranded.
“We are looking into a couple of different scenarios on that,” said Carli Segelson at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Segelson said her agency will test the water for a possible algae bloom but declined to speculate further.
The small conch are related to the larger conch often found in the Florida Keys. They are usually on the bottom of the sea, but over the past couple of days they have been appearing on the shore in droves.
“I found one and I thought, ‘Oh this is so unique,’” said Lori Slater while walking on the shore with her husband. “Then I realized that the thing was alive, so I wanted to put him back because I didn’t want to kill them”
Though the conchs are a sight to see, especially to tourists and avid shell collectors or “shellers,” who have been thrilled to find unscathed shells on the beach, a Florida statute prevents anyone from taking any living creature from the beach.
“It’s illegal to take any shell that has a living creature in it,” said Patrick Copp, an attendant at Bonita Beach. “Quite a few people do collect them. We tell them it’s illegal but people still take them”
"We want Shammy Davis!!!"
That conch is no fighting conch. It’s being man handled.
*WWWF= world wildlife wrestling federation.
I think that they had an election and the losers were thrown up on the beach. They’d make great conch fritters.
Can somebody from that area tell us why they are called “fighting” conchs? What are they supposed to be fighting?
Global warming.
If you hold it to your ear, you can hear the ocean Laz panting.
I had one of suckers puncture the arch of my foot about two months ago! Anna Maria Island - the place was littered with them.
Fighting Conchs, sounds like a great name for a football team.
I was at Seaside at the end of August and there were tens of thousands of sea hare’s in the water and washed up on shore. They stunk pretty badly one day. They also pumped out a really deep purple ink when you messed with the live ones in the water.
Could it be the sea floor where theylive has become covered with the oil that Obama says is all cleaned up ?
I think they got beat by Tulsa last week. ;-)
- FC schedule poster
The Fighting Conchs, watch us beat the Dallas Cowboys this week.
Ha Ha ... hey, wait, that's the same slogan my son's high freshman team has. :o) Aaah, I really can't say much as a Charger fan.
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