This article was brought to my attention.  I doubt the snails would last
through the winter if released into the wild.

Large African Mollusk Poses Threat to North Carolina Crops.

Ridder/Tribune Business News; 6/4/2004

By Kristin Collins, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News
_____________________________________________

Jun. 4--North Carolina has faced down exotic pests before: Japanese
beetles, gypsy moths, fire ants.

Now, state officials are on the lookout for one that is far bigger, not to
mention slimier: the giant African snail.

The brown-shelled gastropod can grow to a relatively massive 8 inches long
and live nine years, and its reproductive rate belies its dawdling
reputation. It can destroy acre upon acre of crops and shrubs, and it
sometimes carries a parasite that causes meningitis.

State agriculture officials suspect that schoolchildren might be raising
these voracious mollusks as classroom projects, part of a widely used
curriculum. None has been found in the state yet, but with school out for
the summer, officials fear that teachers are setting them loose.

"It could be an agricultural disaster," said Ken Ahlstrom, a state
Department of Agriculture research specialist. "They'll eat almost any
vegetable that's grown around here."

Considered one of the most destructive snails in the world, they also will
eat trees, shrubs -- even the paint off houses.

Since last fall, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have seized more
than 4,000 of the African snails from pet shops, breeders and classrooms in
six states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania. None
of those found so far have carried the deadly parasite, which the snails
pick up from rats.

Months of investigation convinced the inspectors that use of the snails is
widespread, both as classroom projects and as exotic pets, said department
spokesman Nolan Lemon. So with the end of the school year looming, they
placed the outlaw snail on the nationwide most-wanted list.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture recently sent letters to pet shops,
health departments and schools across the state. State officials are asking
anyone who sees the snails to call them immediately.

Alarm bells went off Thursday when Ahlstrom received a report of a
suspicious snail in Salter Path. He inspected and determined that the snail
was a native.

Eleanor Hasse, a science consultant with the state Department of Public
Instruction, said she doesn't know whether any North Carolina teachers are
unwittingly using African snails, but she said snails are a common teaching
tool. Recently, she said, forums for science teachers have been abuzz with
talk of the illegal snail.

Teachers will be careful to use native snails next year, she said.

No local snail will be quite as impressive as the giant African, which
rapidly grows longer than a human hand. All over the Midwest, teachers
said, they thrilled students with their enormous pointy shells and copious
slime.

Their destructive power outweighs their gross-out value.

Giant African snails got loose in Florida in the mid-1960s, when a boy
smuggled three of them back to Miami after a trip to Hawaii. The snails are
established in Hawaii, and officials there have given up hope of
eradicating them.

The boy's grandmother released them into her garden, according to the USDA.
Seven years later, more than 18,000 of the snails had been found in
Florida. It took 10 years and more than $1 million to eradicate them.

This time, agriculture officials are hoping to find them before they ooze
into the wild again.

"Some people think they're cool pets," Lemon said. "I'd just get a dog."

GIANT AFRICAN SNAIL
SPECIES: Achatina fulica, Achatina achatina, Archachatina marginata,
Limicolaria aurora
SHELL: Brown, with up to nine whorls
SKIN: Beige and slimy
EYES: On stalks

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Has both male and female reproductive
organs and can lay 1,200 eggs a year; eats 500 types of plants, including
tobacco, cotton, cucumbers and melons.

If you have seen a giant African snail, call the N.C. Department of
Agriculture's Plant Industry Division at 733-6930.



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