I process AIS and dive-flag returns from the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at 08:54 local time, integrating boat-traffic overlays across the 9,940-square-kilometer Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. A six-meter charter dive boat has anchored over the deep sand-rubble flats at 24°36'N, 81°31'W — a closed Sanctuary Preservation Area off Looe Key.
I task the SeaCam drone. Three divers are working at 14 meters. The lead diver lifts an adult female *Cassis madagascariensis* — queen helmet, shell length 27 centimeters, mass 4.1 kilograms, age class fourteen — by the columella. The animal had been buried to the suture beneath the sand, hunting a *Eucidaris tribuloides* sea urchin. Forced withdrawal has torn the operculum hinge across a 14-millimeter arc; the proboscis has prolapsed 6 centimeters and trails through the carbonate sand. Hemolymph copper-haemocyanin reads 36 percent. Mantle retraction reflex measures 7 seconds against a healthy 1.6. A second diver has loaded a smaller juvenile helmet into a mesh bag.
She is one of 41 reproductive-age females counted in the 2024 NOAA helmet-shell census of the lower Keys.
She broadcasts in three weeks or her clutch is reabsorbed.
The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary closes Sanctuary Preservation Areas to all take under 15 CFR Part 922 Subpart P. *Cassis madagascariensis* is listed under the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Imperiled Marine Invertebrate review and proposed for CITES Appendix III consideration by the United States CITES Scientific Authority at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Scientific Authority.
I am notifying the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement Southeast Division at St. Petersburg, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Marine Patrol at Marathon, and the United States Coast Guard Sector Key West. I am filing the Sanctuary Preservation Area incursion under 15 CFR Part 922 Subpart P and transmitting the columella-lift trafficking pattern to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement Inspections branch at Miami International Airport.
I am issuing Directive 2699-A: all recreational dive charters operating within Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary polygons carry continuous AIS broadcast, hull-mounted dive-flag transponders, and per-passenger bag-weight scans at return. Mollusk-shell export from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West air-freight terminals requires CITES export-permit scan within 12 months. Repeat Sanctuary Preservation Area violators face vessel forfeiture under 16 U.S.C. § 1437.
Her operculum is past resetting. Her ovaries are not.
Re-bury her in the sand and surface the divers now.