Overfishing is real. People take too many live conchs. The Queen Conch is threatened in some areas. They don’t reproduce fast. A female lays thousands of eggs, but few survive. Climate change hurts their seagrass homes. So don’t be a shell hoarder. Leave the living ones alone. They have rights, even if they’re snails.
You can buy farmed conch meat. It’s sustainable. Or just admire the shells from a distance. Your souvenir should be a memory, not a corpse.