Ross,

There are about 168 species of land snails in New Mexico and the situation
here is similar to that of Hawaii -- all-be-it in a drier, non-lush, rocky
sort of way.  Many of the species are endemic to the state, and in fact are
endemic to a specific valley, canyon, mountain, or ridge, or what have you.
Any development in such an area, as when they put in an up-scale housing
development in the local foothills, puts certain species at risk.  This has
been identified and I thought all of the native land snails were protected -
and they may be.  But they are not on the latest state list of endangered
animals.  As with many mollusks, the problem is their secretive nature.
People got all up in arms about protecting the Gila wilderness for the
Mexican spotted owl (that has never been seen in that area by the way) but
are not too interested in small, slimey creatures they only see when they
flip over the occasional stone.

Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA (Very cold today but sunny, so still nice.
Had friends stop in and spend the night with their dog, which was added to
my daughter's two dog's who we are dog-sitting, and they are added to my
three dogs who always live here - so had a six dog night!  Interesting.)


My post below applies to the found USA members also......

The question is: outside of Hawaii and Florida, are there any other
places where native North American land snails are in danger from human
activities such as habitat destruction and alteration, pollution or the
introduction of non-native species?

>From the Nice White North (We're still Great, but we have other good
qualities too.....),
Ross.

<I would strongly recommend that American lost members consider
objecting strongly to this and other ill-advised attempts to place greed
and short-term (the USA uses 25% of the world's fossil feuls, yet has
only 3% of the remaining reserves - even drilling every National Park
and wilderness preserve in the country would most likely not change
these figures very much) economic concerns ahead of all that really
matters in the final analysis.   Recall that all that is nessessary for
evil to triumph, is for good people to do nothing!

The National Park Service is accepting comments from the public until
Feb. 23, 2002.   Please write to:

Big Cypress National Preserve, HCR 61
Box 110
Ochopee, Florida, 34141