5 m and tidal currents move west and east at about 1 knot at the 

 peak flow. 



Since 1985 this area has remained populated with juveniles 

 rarely exceeding 120 mm, although an occasional lipped adult was 

 found in the nursery area. As of May 1985 no individuals 

 measured under 60 mm. This is consistent with reports that 

 juvenile S_^ gigas under 80 mm bury and are out of sight during 

 the day (Randall, 1964; Appeldoorn and Ballantine, 1982). 



Density of juvenile S^ gigas in the Children's Bay Cay 

 nursery area appeared fairly constant throughout the year. 

 During October 29 through November 4, 1985, we counted 570,000 

 juvenile S^ gigas in an area of 386,000 m 2 . 



Mean density was 1.48/m 2 (N=946). Densities within the two 

 distinct habitats of the nursery area were 1.72/m 2 (N=824) for 

 the Thalassia grassbeds and 0.76/m 2 (N=122) on the adjacent ooid 

 sand shoal. Comparative density measurements in the Berry 

 Islands, Bahamas, ranged from 1.5/10 m 2 at Little Cockroach Cay 

 to 19.6/10 m 2 at Bird Cay Channel ( Iversen et al . 1987). 



With the exception of Bird Cay Channel, the densities of 

 juvenile S^ gigas in the Children's Bay area of the Exuma Cays 

 are among the highest reported anywhere. Densities of 0.001/m 2 

 and 0.9/m 2 have been reported for S_^ gigas populations in the 

 Virgin Islands (Woods and Olsen 1983) and in the Turks and 

 Caicos (Hesse 1979), respectively. 



The size distribution of juvenile S_^ gigas in the Children's 

 Bay Cay nursery area ranged from 6.0-12.5 cm in May 1985 to 7.0- 

 15.0 cm in January 1986. The modes of the length-frequency 

 curves were 8.0 cm for May 1985 and 11.0 cm for February 1986. 

 Iversen 's (1987) estimates of average length by ages suggest that 

 the main population measured at Children's Bay Cay was 1 year 

 old. This agrees with age-size estimates in Puerto Rico (Berg 

 1976) and Venezuela (Brownell, 1977), but is under Von 

 Bertalonffy growth curve analyses of populations in the Virgin 

 Islands (Berg 1976; Brownell et al . 1976) and Cuba (Alcolado 

 1976). 



One-hundred and fifty-two juvenile conch were tagged at the 

 Children's Bay Cay site with 48 returns including 8 captured 

 twice. Most of the recaptures were made within 1-2 months of the 

 initial tagging and all within a short distance of the site. 

 Mean growth rate calculated from all of the returned tags was 

 0.12 mm/day and 0.37 cm/month. Iversen et al . (1987) reported 

 growth rates from the Berry Islands as 0.44-1.63 cm/month for the 

 summer and 0.18-0.30 cm/month for the rest of the year. Table 2 

 summarizes the tagging returns for this site. 



355 



