Michael,

I knew a man who was on Manus with a governmental agricultural team, back in
the 1970's.  He related that the snails would come down at night by the
hundreds and get into their food and supplies, knapsacks, sleeping bags,
etc., and were generally real pests.  His point was that the species was far
from endangered on Manus.  But as has already been mentioned, it was
supposedly to protect the forests, not the snails, that the snails were
placed on the protected list.  From this gentleman's account though, I
always wondered why the natives didn't just collect the snails at night, on
the ground, rather than cutting down the trees by day??  This never made
much sense to me.

Paul M.