0:00:12.047,0:00:18.536
It was a hot summer day[br]on July 19th, 1975.

0:00:19.552,0:00:23.065
I was 16 years old.

0:00:23.666,0:00:26.687
I was sailing the Bahamas[br]with my family.[br]

0:00:26.687,0:00:29.398
It was a really magical time.

0:00:29.398,0:00:31.669
The fresh air, the sunshine,[br]

0:00:31.669,0:00:35.330
the sparkling seas [br]were filling me with joy.

0:00:35.330,0:00:39.352
And then, I fell in love.

0:00:39.352,0:00:48.388
I fell madly, hopelessly in love ...[br]with a conch.

0:00:49.513,0:00:52.983
It was not just any ordinary conch.[br]

0:00:52.983,0:00:55.653
It was the queen of the sea.

0:00:55.653,0:00:59.924
It was a magnificent queen conch.

0:01:00.134,0:01:01.779
You know that feeling you get[br]

0:01:01.779,0:01:04.624
when you've met someone really special.

0:01:04.624,0:01:07.180
You're visiting a beautiful place,[br]reading a good book

0:01:07.180,0:01:08.791
and you want it to last forever.

0:01:09.260,0:01:12.816
That's how I felt about the queen conch.

0:01:12.816,0:01:16.091
I just loved it so dearly,[br]I wanted to protect it forever.

0:01:16.557,0:01:20.037
And it was on that day,[br]that began my lifelong journey

0:01:20.037,0:01:24.037
and my pioneering dedication[br]to grow millions of conch

0:01:24.037,0:01:28.037
to see the waters[br]of the Caribbean and Florida.

0:01:28.914,0:01:31.422
My captivation[br]for the conch showed up

0:01:31.422,0:01:34.900
in my semester reports at college.

0:01:34.900,0:01:38.319
And then my college connections led me[br]

0:01:38.319,0:01:41.989
to the Caribbean where, at 21,[br]I was living in a tent[br][br]

0:01:41.989,0:01:45.542
on a very small island,[br]working in a makeshift laboratory,[br]

0:01:45.542,0:01:48.485
figuring out how to grow the queen conch.

0:01:48.485,0:01:51.808
As you can imagine,[br]my parents were thrilled.

0:01:51.808,0:01:55.990
(Laughter)

0:01:55.990,0:01:59.662
Four years of college,[br]and their daughter was a farmer.

0:02:01.114,0:02:04.028
Well, a conch farmer, cultivating the sea,[br]

0:02:04.028,0:02:06.942
like the farmer tills the land.

0:02:06.942,0:02:10.016
And that led me to being a co-founder[br]

0:02:10.016,0:02:13.766
of the world's first[br]commercial conch farm.

0:02:13.766,0:02:16.644
That summer, while sailing with my family,

0:02:16.644,0:02:19.012
the Bahamians were so gracious.

0:02:19.012,0:02:21.760
They taught me how to collect the conch,

0:02:21.760,0:02:25.348
and also how to knock the conch,

0:02:25.348,0:02:29.217
and by that you take a hole[br]so that you can remove

0:02:29.217,0:02:32.436
the conch meat out so you can eat it.

0:02:32.436,0:02:36.247
The conch is a very important[br]protein source[br]

0:02:36.247,0:02:39.328
for the Caribbean diet.

0:02:39.328,0:02:41.469
It's also a very important herbivore

0:02:41.469,0:02:43.780
or vegetarian in the seagrass meadows

0:02:43.780,0:02:47.021
of the turqoise waters[br]of the Caribbean and Florida.

0:02:47.397,0:02:52.057
It holds a position of majesty[br]in the islands.

0:02:52.438,0:02:56.438
Certainly a species[br]paid attention to, and I did.

0:02:56.438,0:02:58.678
But I have a question for you:

0:02:58.691,0:03:00.923
Did you ever wonder[br]what the world would be like

0:03:00.923,0:03:02.305
without the queen conch?

0:03:02.305,0:03:04.299
I know. Some of you are thinking:

0:03:04.299,0:03:09.075
"This is the first time[br]I've ever heard of a queen conch."

0:03:09.075,0:03:10.672
Well, I understand.

0:03:10.672,0:03:12.649
But some of you might be thinking:

0:03:12.649,0:03:15.086
"Well, it's a beautiful shell or a snail."

0:03:15.086,0:03:17.384
You can put it on your mantlepiece

0:03:17.384,0:03:20.042
or some of you might know it[br]as a tasty conch fritter.

0:03:20.042,0:03:23.517
Perhaps you've heard[br]of the majestic eagle[br]

0:03:23.517,0:03:28.412
or the cuddly panda bear,[br]or the might whale but I ask:

0:03:28.412,0:03:31.669
Why not the queen of the sea,

0:03:31.669,0:03:36.683
the glorious conch that glides[br]so gracefully across the sea floor?

0:03:38.113,0:03:41.105
So many endangered species[br]such as these,

0:03:41.105,0:03:45.497
including the queen conch[br]are threatened with extinction.

0:03:45.497,0:03:51.909
In nature, between one and five species[br]each year disappear.

0:03:51.909,0:03:55.062
That rate is accelerating[br]due to human activities

0:03:55.062,0:03:57.665
such as overfishing,[br]such as the introduction

0:03:57.665,0:04:01.058
of exotic species[br]and often climate change.

0:04:01.058,0:04:04.130
Now dozens of species are disappearing,[br]

0:04:04.130,0:04:09.302
not yearly but everyday.

0:04:09.302,0:04:13.425
So as a conch farmer[br]I was working really hard

0:04:13.425,0:04:17.541
to make sure to sustain the fate[br]of the queen conch,

0:04:17.541,0:04:21.279
and I remember that very first time[br]I saw a conch larvae,

0:04:21.279,0:04:23.297
using a microscope and I thought:

0:04:23.297,0:04:26.225
"How is it possible[br]for this itty bitty tiny thing,

0:04:26.225,0:04:31.285
just the size of a head of a pin[br]could grow into something so big

0:04:31.285,0:04:34.490
to a five-pound conch?"

0:04:34.490,0:04:38.148
Well, you and I started[br]that small and smaller,[br]

0:04:38.148,0:04:40.076
so it must be possible.

0:04:40.076,0:04:43.103
This conch larvae with its long lobes

0:04:43.103,0:04:46.860
floats freely in the ocean currents,

0:04:46.860,0:04:51.908
and it sometimes doesn't survive[br]because it gets eaten

0:04:51.908,0:04:57.059
by larval fish and also[br]other zooplankton.

0:04:57.059,0:05:02.425
Conch lay about 500,000 eggs[br]and less than 1% survive.

0:05:02.425,0:05:06.461
That's right, less than 1%.[br]This is all part of nature.

0:05:06.461,0:05:10.405
About a month later,[br]as they have been drifting in the sea,

0:05:10.405,0:05:13.754
they settle on the bottom of the ocean[br]in the seagrass beds

0:05:13.764,0:05:18.713
and they start parading[br]across the bottom, looking for food.

0:05:18.722,0:05:21.550
They start to get a heavier shell[br]by that time.[br]

0:05:21.550,0:05:23.938
By about a year old, they have spines.

0:05:23.938,0:05:31.706
What's really amazing is that that larvae[br]was the very tip of the shell

0:05:31.706,0:05:34.468
and it just kept getting bigger.

0:05:34.468,0:05:38.962
It keeps the exact same shell[br]its entire life.

0:05:38.962,0:05:42.046
And it lives to be about 40 years old.

0:05:42.046,0:05:45.364
So even with this shell,[br]it's still vulnerable[br]

0:05:45.364,0:05:48.702
to predators, such as crabs, octopus,

0:05:48.702,0:05:53.131
fish and often turtles.[br]But their greatest danger,[br]

0:05:53.131,0:06:00.472
as you probably already guessed,[br]are you and me. People.[br]

0:06:00.472,0:06:01.848
About ten years ago,

0:06:01.848,0:06:04.424
there was twice as much conch[br]that were being exported

0:06:04.424,0:06:10.240
from the Caribbean to the US sea ports[br]than there are today.

0:06:10.240,0:06:12.860
There are regulations in place[br]that help to ensure

0:06:12.860,0:06:17.852
there's sustainable fishing of conch[br]but there's also overfishing.

0:06:17.852,0:06:20.177
I don't know if you know this,

0:06:20.177,0:06:22.912
but this conch takes almost[br]three years to grow this size

0:06:22.912,0:06:25.037
which is a legal size for fishing.[br]

0:06:25.037,0:06:29.372
That's a substantial amount of time.

0:06:29.372,0:06:35.509
I suppose you might say,[br]it's not exactly a fast food supply.

0:06:35.509,0:06:39.726
As a conch farmer,[br]I was working really hard[br]

0:06:39.726,0:06:43.220
and helped to grow hundreds[br]of thousands of conch in big tanks[br]

0:06:43.220,0:06:47.004
and also on the sea floor in sea cages.

0:06:47.004,0:06:49.101
But really this was a drop in the bucket.[br]

0:06:49.101,0:06:50.928
We need more conch farms,

0:06:50.928,0:06:52.927
and that is still the case today.

0:06:52.927,0:06:56.850
As the conch were being fished,[br]a most exquisite gem

0:06:56.850,0:06:59.277
was making its way around the world[br]

0:06:59.277,0:07:04.164
as the only pick pearl of the sea.

0:07:04.164,0:07:07.823
This hidden jewel is rare.[br][br]

0:07:07.823,0:07:13.727
One one in ten thousand conch[br]in nature produce a pearl like this

0:07:13.727,0:07:17.491
with such a luster[br]and such flickering flame.

0:07:17.491,0:07:19.048
It is really quite amazing

0:07:19.048,0:07:24.055
that if an irritant get lodged[br]inside the conch,

0:07:24.055,0:07:28.372
it turns into something[br]of such deep beauty.

0:07:28.372,0:07:31.827
Could there be a lesson there for us?

0:07:31.827,0:07:36.422
Could our irritations turn into something[br]so beautiful and rewarding?

0:07:36.422,0:07:38.728
I moved from the Caribbean to Florida

0:07:38.728,0:07:42.124
where I continued to be a conch farmer

0:07:42.124,0:07:45.309
at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute,

0:07:45.309,0:07:49.274
and I teamed up[br]with my talented co-inventor,

0:07:49.274,0:07:52.149
Dr. Héctor Acosta[br]and, of course, some more.

0:07:52.149,0:07:56.694
And together we teamed up[br]with his years of experience...

0:07:56.694,0:07:59.051
He came from Mexico.

0:07:59.051,0:08:01.408
With years of experience[br]growing oyster pearls

0:08:01.408,0:08:03.766
and with my knowledge of growing conch,

0:08:03.766,0:08:06.858
we set out together[br]to discover how to grow

0:08:06.858,0:08:09.051
the queen conch pearls.

0:08:09.051,0:08:13.843
In 2006, Harbor Branch made history.[br]

0:08:13.843,0:08:17.845
We produced a couple of hundred[br]conch pearls.

0:08:17.845,0:08:23.609
each taking twelve months to grow[br]to the size of an oyster pearl.

0:08:23.609,0:08:28.907
Gemologists everywhere were so excited[br]by this breakthrough.

0:08:28.907,0:08:34.951
Today, technology has been licensed,[br]and with meticulous precision,

0:08:34.951,0:08:39.255
we continue to refine the techniques[br]as we speak.

0:08:39.255,0:08:46.045
So from conch farmer, to pearl farmer. [br]I wonder what's next.

0:08:46.045,0:08:48.003
I know one thing for sure,

0:08:48.003,0:08:50.911
we need to bring the queen conch back,

0:08:50.911,0:08:54.629
just like the success story of the eagle.

0:08:54.629,0:09:00.649
We need to work together to find solutions[br]for disappearing species.

0:09:00.649,0:09:02.051
For you seafood lovers, [br]

0:09:02.051,0:09:04.143
learn where your seafood comes from

0:09:04.143,0:09:06.817
and eat sustainable sources of seafood.

0:09:06.817,0:09:08.861
If you enjoy volunteering,

0:09:08.861,0:09:13.195
find a local conservation organization[br]and lend a helping hand.

0:09:13.195,0:09:18.940
When you donate to a cause,[br]you help our oceans on our planet.

0:09:18.940,0:09:20.882
So the next time you are asked:

0:09:20.882,0:09:23.894
"Have you ever wondered[br]what the world would be like

0:09:23.894,0:09:25.788
without the queen conch?"[br]

0:09:25.788,0:09:27.914
I want you to remember this adorable conch

0:09:27.914,0:09:32.201
with the charming eyes and say:

0:09:32.201,0:09:35.738
"Restore her to power."

0:09:35.738,0:09:39.825
(Applause)