Dear Sophie,

        I would be interested in having the complete article emailed to me.

        Thank you,

        Scott Jordan
        1620 El Travesia Drive
        La Habra Heights CA 90631
        USA

-----Original Message-----
From:   sophiev [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, December 21, 1999 6:20 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Collecting landsnails

>Several land snails have become serious pests or threats to native species
>when introduced into other regions. This is why Customs is particularly
>concerned about snails. Identifying your collectins as seashells does seem
>to satisfy them, but be sure that everything is dead.
>
>Dr. David Campbell

In Science magazine (September 17,1999) a file on biological invaders
and more particularly a beautiful little snail Euglandina rosea which
was imported from Florida in 1958.

"Hawaii's menagerie of imports includes plenty of unpleasant
customers. Take the rosy wolf snail, Euglandina rosea. It was
imported in 1958 to knock off another alien predator, the giant
African snail, and is an ideal killing machine, tracking its victims
by their slime trails. However, Euglandina swiftly developed a taste
for the native snails too and went on a binge. "It's very difficult
to prove that Euglandina is responsible for the extinction of native
snails, but the weight of the evidence virtually forces this
conclusion," says Robert Cowie, a biologist at the Bishop Museum in
Honolulu.

Wiping out Euglandina is almost impossible--"everything you think of
that can kill Euglandina would kill the native snails as well," says
Stephen Miller, a population ecologist with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Honolulu. So scientists have for now forsaken the
sword for the shield: snail "exclosures" designed to protect the
natives from the exotic predators. A team led by zoologist Michael
Hadfield of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, has built the largest of
them, a 430-square-meter corrugated aluminum fortress, in the
northern Waianae mountains on Oahu. Erected around a population of
endangered Achatinella mustelina snails, the barrier is ringed by a
salt trough, a substance as painful to snails as battery acid to
people. "The minute Euglandina touch the salt, they just drop back,"
says Hadfield. The fence also has two electrified wires to deter
rats, another snail predator, and rat motels inside the exclosure. "

I can email the all file to those who are interested in.

Sophie
Sophie Valtat
16, rue des Ecoles
75005 Paris
France