Paul,

Yes, Bill and I discussed that, too.  He commented that much of the commercial
harvest of this snail, at that time, was a by-product of the logging industry on
the island: the cut trees were scrupulously combed for this popular snail.

Logging is a daytime activity, to be sure, and the loggers were engaged to
collect the snails.  Night time is for sleeping, especially after a hard day's
work.  Either they were ignorant of the nighttime harvest or their daytime
method most suited them.  If logging was stopped, or limited in some way, the
demand for the snail could have been an inspiration to surreptitiously cut down
trees outside of official controls.  Then, I can imagine, the snail had to be
outlawed in order to become part of the solution.

Easter Island was full of trees, once!

Michael LaFosse

Monfils, Paul wrote:

> 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.