It's Conch season once again, a time for Soup, Ceviche, and fritters.
And this week, researchers and fisherfolk in the Port Honduras marine reserve, are hard at work carrying out surveys.
They're hoping to determine whether this year's conch stock is more, less, or equal to last year's. Here's more from the water as reported by Jose Sanchez.
Reporter
"How do you see it compared to the first day last year?"
Fisherman
"We had more Conch last year, a lot more conch last year than this year."
Rahjeme Coleman, Ranger.
"Today the conch season has re-opened so because of today, the past couple of days we've been doing several different types of patrols. We've been mainly focusing on the conservation zone. We did several night patrols and last night like how last night was the 30th we did a giant patrol with the police coast guard in regards to the CONCH season."
"Today we made some stops in, some of the recreational fishers what we notice is that they are not fully educated about the reserve and that is where TIDE outreach is doing this survey today and doing, a from vessel to vessel inspection."
Federico Caal, Outreach and Education Officer, TIDE
"Alright with TIDE's 102 thousand acres of pristine marine environment, outreach is an important aspect of our work, so today we started with a boat to boat outreach for the opening of the conch season to ensure that fisherfolk has been following the 7 inches in conch shell length and also ensuring that they you clean their conch and ensure that it is greater than 3 and 2.75 ounces."
"We're glad to report that hearing from the fisherfolks that the catch is in line with their previous catch so that means that the data that the researchers are collecting within is in line with what we are seeing. So basically, it is great that we have researchers who are committed to do these day to day activities with young people from communities that are employed through our community development program, conducting these types of surveys."
"We want our resource users to abide by harvesting, we want every individual that uses Port Honduras Marine Reserve to follow the regulations of the area to ensure that the proper gears are used, to ensure that the proper size is extracted from the area, so that we could have fish for future generation, conch for future generation and also lobster. Basically Port Honduras Reserve is here for Belizeans we continue following all the regulations."
This group has done several patrols culminating in what they call a giant patrol on the day September 30th, the day before the season began. It included both police and coast guard.
