FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 85, NO. 2 



10 



8 



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z: 



LU 



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o 



LLI 

 DC 



HAY 1980-FEB 1963 



CAT CAY (N - 8,440) 



UTTLE COCKROACH CAY (N - 3^11) 



40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 



JU>fE 1980 - FEB 1983 



VIGILANT CAY - OFFSHORE WEST (N = 1,031) 



VIGILANT CAY - ONSHORE WEST (N = 1,193) 



♦0 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 



SHELL LENGTH CLASS MIDPOINTS CmmD 



of lipped conchs reported for the Virgin Islands was 

 20.4 cm (Randall 1964). Randall noted that lipped 

 conchs sampled in the Berry Islands were smaller 

 in length than conchs taken elsewhere in the Baha- 

 mas, or in the Virgin Islands. 



Without exception, tagged queen conchs stayed 

 at the cays where they were released, including 

 transplanted queen conchs from nearby cays. It is 

 possible that we did not observe migration because 

 the majority of conchs we sampled were juveniles. 

 Hesse (1979) reported that adult queen conch in 

 Turks and Caicos ranged farthest (about 2 km) from 

 the tagging site and made seasonal migrations off- 

 shore in fall and inshore in spring, while juveniles 



moved <1 km. Weil and Laughlin (1984) reported 

 similar movements for adult and juvenile queen 

 conchs in Venezuela. 



Queen Conch Density by Areas 



Since the density of queen conch in local areas can 

 affect growth (Alcolado 1976; Weil and Laughlin 

 1984; Appeldoorn and Sanders 1984), we made den- 

 sity estimates at each of our sampling sites. The 

 mean density of queen conchs at all locations 

 studied, based on 100_m transects taken perpen- 

 dicular to shore, was X = 7.9 ± 1.2 conchs/10 m^. 

 Highest mean densities were found at Bird Cay 



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