Environmentally friendly sea shell collections available for purchase?

[paul monfils]

Most shells sold by vendors are live-collected because these are the shells that are in the best condition, and that is what most collectors want. Sometimes you will see a shell offered as "fresh dead". This means that the shell was washed up on the beach live, but died there with the animal still in it, and is in near perfect condition. But once a dead shell has been on the beach or in shallow water for a while, it deteriorates rapidly, becoming scratched and chipped as it is tossed about by the waves, and faded due to the bleaching effect of sunlight.  Occasionally a dealer will offer a dead collected shell of a rare species that simply isn't available in live-collected condition.  But no specimen shell vendor offers dead collected shells of common species, simply because almost no-one wants them.

Personally I don't believe that taking of shells for collections has any appreciable effect on the environment. I am a specimen shell dealer, and as such I do collect some shells in greater quantity than the average collector might.  Still, if I go down to a rocky shore and take 50 live Nucella off the rocks, the fact that I could easily find 50 of them is an indication that there are certainly thousands of them nearby, and the loss of 50 isn't going to produce any significant effect on the population. If I collect 50 live Mercenaria or Pecten (which will probably last me a year or more), seafood stores in the vicinity are selling thousands of these per week, yet the populations remain healthy. I am very environmentally conscious in my collecting. If I turn over a rock to see what might be underneath, I always replace it in its original position. If I find any trash, I pick it up and put it in my bucket. I avoid any activity that could negatively impact the ecosystem. But shell collecting is not such an activity.  <span class="petit">--Last edited by Paul Monfils on 2008-07-09 19:22:58 --</span>