Perhaps you were able to travel during Interim. Perhaps you went south out of the Michigan winter to a more tropical region, like me. I was able to go with my family to the Florida Keys for a few weeks where we basked in the sun beside iguanas and relished the fresh seafood. Many will agree that the fresh catch from a local, dockside restaurant is better than a fish that has been caught, shipped and processed in multiple countries before ending up frozen in the fridge of a landlocked restaurant. However, even at local dockside restaurants, you have to take a closer look. Would it surprise you that the top menu item in the Florida Keys is “Maine Lobster?” Apparently, lobsters in Florida don’t have the same meaty, desired claws as Maine lobsters. The Keys’ local specialty are conch fritters, but I nearly choked when my father told me that conch are an endangered species. I was confused as to how an endangered species could be served up on a plate at every restaurant in town so, I did a little research.

The queen conch is a marine mollusk that can live up to 40 years. Its shell grows with the mollusk in a spiraling fashion that results in pink and orange shells, which can be up to a foot in length. You can picture holding the shell to your ear and hearing the ocean. But if you listen to its story, the calming waves start to sound more like the void left from an exploited creature. The harvested shells are sold whole for decoration or broken up and used for jewelry while the animal is either sold for aquarium use or prepared as food.

In the Florida Keys, conch fritters are a delicacy and a local icon—deep fried balls of dough stuffed with the tender, flavorful meat of the conch. Nowhere on the menu is there mention that the conch is an endangered species. Since harvesting conch in the Florida Keys is illegal, you wonder where is all this conch meat coming from? And who stocks the shells dazzling in gift shop windows?

Conch were once abundant in the Keys which is why they’ve remained an intricate part of the culture. However, in the 1970s, overharvesting and the collapse of Florida’s conch fisheries marked the species as endangered. With commercial and recreational harvesting of conch illegal in Florida, restaurants and souvenir shops began importing conch products from other Caribbean islands such as Antigua, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras and Tobago. Many of these countries did not meet the U.S. restrictions, and in 2003 importing conch from these locations was banned. By 2006, many of the countries met the trade standards and only conch imports from Haiti and Grenada are still banned. However, these restrictions don’t prevent illegal trade, so it is important to make sure that you know the restaurant or store is reputable before purchasing conch products.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service reports that the United States consumes 80% of the world’s internationally traded queen conch. Is it enough to mark a species as endangered in the States if we’re not changing our habits to protect that species around the world?