The nautilus fadeout

A horrendous slaughter is going on out here, said Peter D. Ward,a biologist from the University of Washington,US,during a recent census of the marine creature in the Philippines. Theyre nearly wiped out.

The culprit? Growing sales of jewellery and ornaments derived from the lustrous shell. Now marine biologists have begun to assess the status of its populations and to consider whether it should be listed as an endangered species to curb the shell trade. On eBay and elsewhere,small nautilus shells sell as earrings for 19.95,and as pendants for 24.95. Big onesup to the size of platescan be found for 56. As jewellery,the opalescent material from the shells inner surfacemarketed as a cheaper alternative to real pearlcan fetch 80 for earrings,225 for bracelets and 489 for necklaces. Catching the nautilus is a largely unregulated free-for-all in which fishermen from poor South Pacific countries gladly accept 1 per shell. Scientists worry that rising demand may end up eradicating an animal that grows slowly and needs 15 years or more to reach sexual maturityan unusually long time for a cephalopod.

In certain areas,its threatened with extermination, said Neil H. Landman,a biologist and paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History and the co-editor of Nautilus: The Biology and Paleobiology of a Living Fossil,a compendium of scientific reports. The nautilus lives on the slopes of deep coral reefs in the warm southwestern Pacific. Fossil records date the ancestors of the nautilus to the late Cambrian period,500 million years ago.

To feed on fish and shrimp,the nautilus has as many as 90 small tentaclesand a relatively large brain and eyes. The coiled shell can exhibit a nacreous lustre or bands of bright colour.Like a submarine,the nautilus changes the amount of gas in the empty chambers to adjust its buoyancy. And it uses jet propulsion to swim. It cannot go too deep lest its shell implode. While the dwindling stocks of a beloved species can sometimes serve as a call to actionthink of whales,pandas and polar bearsthe threat to the chambered nautilus has gone largely unnoticed. Marine biologists are now lobbying for protection of the nautilus under the same United Nations rules that protect the American black bear,the African gray parrot,the green iguana and other creatures. The rules,the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES,allow commercial trade if it is legal and sustainable.

Biologists have complied anecdotal reports of population declines near the Philippines,Indonesia and New Caledonia whose official emblem features a nautilus shell. But the alarms sounded with new intensity last year at a conference in Dijon,France. Patricia S. De Angelis of the US. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that the US had imported 579,000 specimens from 2005 to 2008. This summer,the Fish and Wildlife Service paid for Ward and his colleagues to begin a global census off the Philippine island of Bohol,which has long figured in the shell trade. In an email in August,he said the team was working with local fishermen to set 40 traps a day but was catching two creatures at mosta tenth to a hundredth the rate of a decade ago. A horror show, he called it,adding that he suspected that one particular kind of nautilus is already extinct in the Philippines or nearly so. The team plans to go to Australia in December to expand the census to its Great Barrier Reef. The hope is that data from six sites will allow the scientists to estimate the worlds remaining nautilus population,and what might constitute a sustainable catch.