>The site that Mark recommended is certainly amusing,
><http://www.igor.demon.co.uk/snail.htm#introduction>
>but the activity described is illegal in the United States!
>
>(It's illegal to own live Achatina without a permit from
>the United States Department of Agriculture)
 
 
I lived in Guam from 1959-61 (my father was in the Navy and stationed
there) and remember that the place was rife with giant African land snails.
About three years ago I got a chance to return to do a bit of SCUBA diving,
shell collecting, and to see what changes had occured over the last 30
years.  After a couple of days there I realized that there were no giant
snails to be seen at all.  I asked the person running the boat we were
diving from and he said that a biologist had, without getting prior
approval, released some parasite that had pretty much wiped them out
although there was reputed to be one remaining enclave somewhere in the
northwest corner of Guam.  Supposedly the biologist denied that he'd done
it and it was never proven that he had, but he left under a cloud of
suspician. Can anyone correct or fill in more details of this story?
 
--
Ed Foster
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