Speculatively, the shoals or fray of jacks that are currently being eaten, maybe jacks from the coastline of other isles, on the contrary, as a child I may have been tucking into jacks from Netherland Antilles or Virgin Islands as ‘jacks’ journeying down to a particular isle in shoals for a ‘reef fishing schooling feeding day out', may simply get caught in the island nets – so while my two childhood jacks may have been, say windward isle jacks, the jacks caught nowadays may be shoals of ‘tourist’ schooling jacks, simply caught in the islands' nets. Basically, our coastline waters may contain ‘no native jacks’? On the contrary for argument sake, my morning warmed up jacks could have been from the Atlantic or True blue coastline?

The demands for fish have shot up since my colonial childhood days, with the surfacing of more hotels or restaurants. Thus increasing culinary demands for more fishes of all types, and although 'climate change' may play a significant role, so does humans. Rightly so, the ocean plays its own no nonsense conservation ‘no fishing today game’, courtesy of the weather, rough seas, unusual underwater current patterns, and at times ‘hostile’ seasonal weather. Thus, ensuring fisher folks cannot set sail. Hats off to the wise Creator! Catches of jacks are intermittently seasonal; if I recall my Gran saying that November- May was the abundant jack catching season. Is this the key marine ‘conservation’ term, ‘percentage of jacks catch is dependent on season variability’? And if there is a season for everything, is the final curtain call for season for jacks fastly approaching? I recall again, the buzz talk of folks, that there was plenty of jacks in say, Grenville but none in St Georges’!

Swarms of sea fishes have ‘disappeared’ as coral reefs are under international 'pristine' scrutiny from all angles. Shoals of fishes that venture to feed on coral reefs, like the jacks, barracuda, snappers, even sharks, etc are simply caught in fishing nets. Rare coral fishes are usually thrown back or bravely jump out of the hauling-in nets back into the water, some get injured. Amazingly, some nations or fisher folks shy away from the accountability blame, it is easier to blame ‘climate change’ and not on pressurised demands - far from the days of olde, when folks purchased a bowl of jacks for the days’ meals – with no thoughts of local fishes being exported on an such international scale.

I can take a stand on my ‘platform’ to acclaim, No more coastline fishing by fisherfolks or ‘lay fisher folks’ , in order to allow marine species such as the ‘small jacks’ to continue with their schooling along the white sandy beaches coastline reefs. Coastline fishing is now having a major effect or putting extra pressure on corals which are no longer in the ‘pristine naïve’ state. This type of coastline fishing, is endangering coral fishes, such as the ‘red hind’, the ‘caesar grunt’….the moonfish, ballyhoo, even the flying fish, batteries of barracuda, even sharks, who is also schooling for prey. The call on my platform, may follow a similar resounding call of the Saviour…… fisher folks stop fishing in the shallow waters, instead go fishing into the deeper waters!

Back to the : jacks, small, medium or large? Although, some fish stocks are under constant assessments, marine ecological issues are dealing with overexploitation and blatant abuse of the ocean as a ‘giveaway fish supermarket’. Who takes the blame for overexploitation or overfishing? Ecologically however, not all is gloom, some fish species for example ,the flying fish are quick growing, short lived, reproduce pretty quickly, and seem to be resilient to fishing pressure demands. This may be, and I stress maybe, applicable to the familiar island ‘cheaper’ jacks, hence no drastic measures of depletion. . What is the price for jacks now? At the present moment in time, depletion in numbers of jacks, maybe the result of hauling in the small immature jacks from the reef. I recall hearing folks complaining ..'eh, the jacks small today!

Change in eating habits and trends have played its part in the ‘exploitation fishing game’ and currently large fishes such as shark, are under threat not surprising after the ‘bake and shark’ popularity, and now I believe we have the 'fish bacon' trend. There is international concerns for the ‘seabed‘ queen conch’ or lambie species, still a sister isle culinary delight, and the empty shell used for blowing the ‘jacks’ evening price deal!

From my perspective, the titiri argument may differ slightly in terms of conservation - for these boucherie/fresh river species, need this more restricted specialised dual ecosystem for their own preservation. For the sake of argument, no way, can say leeward river isles titiri enter differing isle rivers or boucherie by their own will, for ‘a feeding day out’, like say, speculatively speaking, the jacks!

Although, seafood have been eaten for centuries, times have changed, for culinary trends, so if island folks are going for shivers and shivers of ‘shark and bake’ , then that may give the humble jacks time for rejuvenation. It seems that most of the Caribbean islands shoals of fresh fishes are exported(so more is being taken out than in days of olde), and the consensus maybe pushing for folks to revert back to cheaper options of ‘salted fish’ or tinned fish rather than fresh fish. Also, ‘baiting’ for fish has aggressively changed, so as a non-expert fisher folk, I would theoretical think that the more effective the bait…the higher the percentage of catch, thus, more shoals of fishes for export, equating to shoals of money and resulting in shoals of depletion in stocks!

Finally, on a predictive adaptability, I believe that the shoals of jacks - small, medium or large, may eventually venture or permanently escape to other isles’ reefs for their schooling, or if they survive their dangerous ‘coral reef schooling’ period, depart for other coastline isles, such as the more isolated, 'private islands' coastlines where the schooling of jacks may guaranteed some safety, and increase of numbers once again which fisher folks will not to be able to access.

The key 'jacks' fishing conservation terms maybe .... No access to coral reefs areas! small jacks are at school! And, they will always hear their Creator call to enter......deeper waters in shoals and shoals.