As I read a thread about ethnics about destroying the shelters of animals to observe the organism and take a picture for iNaturalist post, I remember the time when I was a heavy seashell collector and was always called out by my sister who believed in the collection of tons seashells were poor etiquette for beach combing. I would collect mostly clam shells and bivalves but also other spiral shells but not as often from where I live. The time when I realized my life long mistake was when me and my family went down to San Francisco to attend my sisterâs graduation. We visited a beach somewhere outside of San Francisco and there were a ton of small seashells. So, of course, I started filling up my hand full. My sister kept asking me to leave the shells on the beach because if everyone else collects the same amount of shells, there wouldnât be any more for sea life to inhabit and to create protection. I eventually emptied my hand and left the shells at the beach. This year, when I discovered iNaturalist, I have been working on myself with being more respectful of wildlife, especially seashells and those who inhabit those shells. My only guidelines for collecting shells nowadays are that I would only collect one to four large shells on a rare occasion if I find them to be every special to me or to give to my mom. Earlier this summer, I went through my collection of seashells and rocks and decided to return all the rocks outside and I filtered my shells out to only keep a few special ones, the rest I gave to my mom to put outside where she has shells outside under the rain pipe. I know that I shouldâve returned them to the beach instead but my mom decided where she would put them and it not easy to change her mind on these things. On one of my most recent walk to the beach, I found four same of the small super pretty spiral shells and decided to collect them to share two with my mom and keep the other two. Sorry about the long late night rant session of mine but I would love to hear what your thoughts on collecting seashells and to hear what your favorite seashells that you collected. Mine are any spiral and unique shells.
In my opinion, put your unwanted shells under a tree. You save a trip to the beach. Too much calcium can cause chlorosis to plants. For some plants which like slightly alkaline conditions, it may grow bigger. Probably enables flowering in bougainvillea if done right. Maybe break it up and put into the compost soil.
I say, if the shell of a bivalve has broken in two, I donât think wildlife will use it. Unless there are some very flat hermit crabs somewhere, I think itâs fine to collect a few (1-3) on a trip to the beach.
Just a heads up, as a bivalve identifier, people returning seashells to the wrong beaches often leads to confusion as sometimes the species donât occur there. Iâve also personally seen many marine seashells on freshwater beaches. This isnât really that much of a problem but it makes things more complicated for identifiers, and if this continues, weâd have to learn the differences between species that look identical but are separated geographically, which would be very tedious. There are probably shells that Iâve identified as local species despite them being dumped there from across the world.
TLDR; return your shells to the beach (or at least the right part of the ocean) where you found them to make it easier for identifiers
The thing is, broken valves take more effort to identify than complete valves. I donât think bivalve shells (even complete ones) are used by hermit crabs in the first place (yes, I know there are a few exceptions, but they practically only use gastropod shells).
I read an interesting article about hermit crabs. They hollow out the gastropod shells to make them lighter, so they prefer a previously used shell. A whole 'nother layer to consider.
(And yes, there are shells here too!)
I am also in a dilemma about this. I donât know if I should collect shells or not. Besides hermit crab homes (which only applies to gasteropods), I have not studied how do they serve to the ecosystem. But I guess they add minerals to the water, they degrade into sandâŚ
Anyway, for now I just collect a few (at least proportionally to the total number present at the beach, like, between three and five per species if they are at a moderated abundance, and between five and fifteen if they are very abundant) of them to create a general map of the mollusc species present at a specific beach. It is just a thing of feeling if youâve got enough for what you want to find out (like, if youâve got enough pretty specimens of a species, or if you have enough shells with a specific predation mark to make a conclusion or find a pattern).
Around here, hermit crabs even organise swap meets. Theyâll aggregate as they start to outgrow their current shell, and when everyone thinks theyâve found a good donor and the biggest has found a suitable new shell, theyâll all trade up a size.
I thought I had some obs up of larger aggregations, but I guess I havenât processed that footage for stills to upload here yet either. Hereâs one where an individual either misjudged, or more likely had someone else steal the shell they were hoping to get, leaving a couple of them left behind with buyerâs remorse until some more individuals in need of a trade come by.
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/144659499
The problem isnât how many you collect (unless youâre down at the beach with an earth mover and dump truck) - itâs the multiplier of how many âyouâsâ each collect âjust a fewâ every day. So the question in many easily accessible places should be less about âhow manyâ per collector, and maybe more about whether you ever need to carry away specimens at all. In the case of shells itâs not like they run away or feel harassed if you photograph them from every angle on a scale table before putting them back âŚ
Iâve seen people give a similar argument for uprooting habitat to look for creatures - âItâs ok as long as youâre respectfulâ is the common rationale. But when youâre doing it in a place that gets many visitors every day who are all ârespectfullyâ lifting and turning over everything they can find that looks liftable and possibly inhabited - sometimes with added urgency when theyâve made a special trip there because they heard a report that something rare or special was seen by a previous overturner who got lots of likes for their photos of it - then Respect isnât really the word for what you are doing anymore.
Things that might genuinely be âinsignificantâ as an isolated rare event donât always remain so when they become something that every visitor feels they have a right to Also Do because someone else did before them.
Thatâs true. But I donât take shells always. And not everyone takes shells home, either. That doesnât seem to be much of a problem here. And I donât always have the opportunity to take a photographic device with me.
But, if all those collectors collect that amount of shells per day, what happens to the ecosystem?
When I was young one of my favorite pranks was to put marine seashells on the beach at my local lake (which was over 500 miles from any ocean). I would collect them over summer vacation trips and then clandestinely plant them at the local beach. This was well before the days of iNaturalist, but who knows, maybe some of them are still there! May God have mercy on my soul.
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