About Us
We are Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute’s Queen Conch Lab (QCL). The Queen Conch Lab is a celebrated research and education program within the Aquaculture Innovation and Global Food Security department at FAU. The QCL works with Caribbean communities to rebuild queen conch populations and support local livelihoods by creating community-led hatcheries. Our goal is to help countries grow conch for restoration, future broodstock, and long-term food security.
Our Mission
To grow queen conch for the sake of the species, ecosystem, and people who depend on the fishery.
Our Vision
A queen conch farm in every Caribbean country.
The Problem
Across the Caribbean, the queen conch has long been central to culture, food security, and coastal livelihoods. But over the past several decades, heavy fishing pressure, habitat loss, and the widespread harvest of juveniles have pushed this iconic species into steep decline. By 2024, the situation had become critical enough for NOAA to list the queen conch as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
This decline has wide-reaching impacts. Reproductive adults are disappearing from the waters of countries across the region, fisheries are collapsing in places where communities rely on conch for income and nutrition, and seagrass ecosystems are suffering without the conch’s natural role in cleaning blades and supporting carbon-sequestering habitats.
