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Date: | Wed, 26 Apr 2000 11:33:16 -0400 |
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At 10:29 AM 04/26/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>During lunch yesterday I picked up a gardening magazine belonging to one of
>my colleagues, and as I flipped through it I came upon a large full color
>picture of a snail. I figured the attached article was about controlling
>snails that feed on garden plants. And so it was - only it wasn't exactly
>an article, it was an advertisement - and the pictured snail was not one of
>the species that need to be controlled. Rather, it was a carnivorous snail
>that was being offered for sale as a means of controlling Helix and other
>molluscan garden pests. I visited their web site (www.biopest.com). The
>snail they are selling is Rumina decollata, which they list as "decollate
>predatory snail". Is this a reasonable approach to controlling snails in
>your garden? Or could the importation of such a species result in mass
>destruction of the local molluscan fauna?
>Paul M.
>
Not only does Rumina eat native snails, but it seems to be very prolific
and adaptable. I have seen densities of over 30 / sq. meter at Myrtle
Beach, NC. They seemed to be subsisting on Triodopsis hopetonensis and each
other. Isn't there a law against releasing exotics?
*****************************************
G Thomas Watters, PhD
Ohio Biological Survey &
Aquatic Ecology Laboratory
Ohio State University
1315 Kinnear Road
Columbus, OH 43212 USA
v: 614-292-6170 f: 614-292-0181
******************************************
"The world is my oyster except for months with an 'R' in them" - Firesign
Theater
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
has to buy a license" - GTW
"Beliefs are more powerful than facts" - Duke Paulus Atreides
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