The Queen Conkonk is an iconic snail that lives in Caribbean waters.

But the popularity of the shells and the tastiness of the meat led them to be overfished. It's Tuesday July 16th and this is

Science Friday. I'm Cyfry producer Kathleen Davis. You may have seen the shell of a Queen Conk. They're shiny, pink, and orange, and they can be up to a foot long.

Their populations have decreased dramatically over the years, So luckily, marine scientists in Florida

and the Bahamas are hard at work

to make sure Queen Conk thrive into the future.

Our next guest tagged along with some scientists who are doing this work and she's here to tell us all about it.

Jenny Stoleletovich is the environment editor at WLrN in Miami, Florida.

Jenny, welcome to Science Friday.

Hey, thanks, Kathleen.

It's great to be here.

Great to have you.

So tell us a little bit about Queen Conk.

I mean, what is it like to be a Queen Conk these days?

That's right, so in Florida Florida it means that you are probably pretty

lonely. The state used to have this really booming population. That's why like you said the

keys are called the Kunk Republic but the popularity of the shells and

the tastiness of the meat led them to be overfished. That wiped out these big

herds of conks and left these much smaller aggregations.

And because there are so few, these slow moving conks,

had a hard time finding each other,

which meant that their numbers continued to drop.

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