Introduction Queen Conch (Strombus gigas) are herbivorous gastropod mollusks; they live in shallow waters, and are commonly found in sand and sea grass substrates. They are significant to the Bahamas for a multitude of reasons. Economically, conch are important because they are the second largest fishery in the Bahamas (Danylchuck, 2003) . Queen conch are ecologically important because they keep the balance in the food chain by eating algae, and are a prey source for a variety of predators. Socially, conch are a symbol of Bahamian culture and a major food source. Despite their significance, conch populations have declined in recent years due to overfishing, degradation of sea grass beds, water pollution, and a lack of regulatory fishing mechanisms (Turnquest, 2012). Past studies comparing the population density of a marine protected area (MPA) and an unprotected area have shown that the density in the MPA is higher than the unprotected area (Stoner and Ray 1996). Previous Island School semesters have shown that there is good nursery habitat right off the cape in South Eleuthera, and the area is currently part of the proposed MPA. While conch juveniles settle in South Eleuthera, we are less aware of the abundance of adults. Queen conch are a density-dependent species, because of their internal fertilization, slow movement, and sex ratio of 1:1 (Stoner et al.2, 2012). In other words, they can only reproduce at a certain density. Therefore, if less than 47 individuals are present in a hectare (ha) there is little chance of reproduction occurring (Stoner et al. 1, 2012). In addition, conch reach sexual maturity after four years; this elongated process of sexual maturity adds to their decline because they cannot reproduce quickly. Methods Our research was conducted in and around the proposed MPA boundaries in Cape Eleuthera, Bahamas. Our methods were consistent with those of Stoner and Ray (1996). We conducted transects (1000m x 6m) based off of systematically randomized coordinates on a GPS (Fig. 1). Two snorkelers were towed behind a boat (Fig. 2), and signaled the presence and age of conch with hand signals, which were recorded by students on the boat (Fig. 3). Depth, time, and bottom type were also recorded. Some collected conch were brought back to the lab and measured (Fig. 4). Results A total of 114 queen conch were seen in 25 transects run in Cape Eleuthera, the Bahamas. The mean number of sub adults/ha were higher than the means of both the adults and juveniles/ha (Fig. 5). The highest densities of queen conch were observed in the western half of the proposed MPA grounds, reaching a maximum of 400 individual conch/ha(Fig. 6). However, despite this high number of conch, there were 12 transects where no conch were seen at all. 91% of the hectares observed did not have enough adult conch for reproduction. In addition, the highest densities of conch observed were in macroalgae substrates, not in sand and seagrass substrates. There was a mean of <1 adult conch/ha in sand substrates and there was a mean of 18 adult conch/ha in macroalgae substrates (Fig. 7). Discussion Our first hypothesis was that in the proposed MPA there would not be enough adult conch/ ha. for reproduction to occur. We formulated this hypothesis because it takes more than 47 conch/ha. for reproduction (Stoner et al. 1, 2012), and we think that density will be too low due to overfishing. 91% of the transects run (SP 12 and FA 12 data) did not have enough adults for reproduction, supporting our first hypothesis. Our second hypothesis was that we would find most adult conch in sandy substrates near reefs, because previous studies in the Caribbean found that adult conch use reefs in sand substrates for protection (Glazer and Kidney, 2004). We determined that most of the adult conch in South Eleuthera were found in macroalgae and seagrass substrates, rejecting our second hypothesis. We would like to suggest revising the boundaries of the proposed MPA here in Sout