"The beautiful marine mollusks have international protections, but sale of their shells continues by the tens of thousands."
"Wildlife biologist Vincent Nijman has studied the gorgeous marine mollusk called the chambered nautilus for years, but he’s never had the opportunity to observe one swimming in the ocean.
“I’ve never seen one,” he admits. “They’re very difficult to see. I know very few people that actually seen them alive. They swim quite deep. They come up a little bit higher during the night, but even most divers haven’t seen them.”
He’s seen plenty of empty nautilus shells, though. Thousands of them.
Chambered nautiluses (Nautilus pompilius) — one of at least nine related species — live in the south Pacific around Indonesia and other countries. Previous research has identified unsustainable levels of trade in their shells, often sliced in half to reveal their intricate patterns (which resemble, but don’t quite match, mathematics’ fabled golden ratio). So many nautilus shells have been sold over the years that in 2016 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species required permits showing they were sustainably harvested. A few years later the United States added them to the Endangered Species Act. They’re also legally protected in Indonesia."
