{"id":58275,"date":"2023-07-08T15:56:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-08T19:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=58275"},"modified":"2023-07-08T15:56:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T19:56:37","slug":"giant-african-land-snails-appear-to-be-invading-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2023\/07\/giant-african-land-snails-appear-to-be-invading-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant African land snails appear to be invading Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In Florida, the brown- and yellow-shelled snails \u2013 native to West Africa \u2013 have become a recurrent nightmare. Not only do they devour almost any kind of vegetation; the critters can harbor a parasite called rat lungworm that causes a type of meningitis in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Snail_in_Ubud_Bali_2010_1-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-58276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Snail_in_Ubud_Bali_2010_1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Snail_in_Ubud_Bali_2010_1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Snail_in_Ubud_Bali_2010_1-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Snail in Ubud, Bali, 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Giant African land snails first showed up in the U.S. in Miami in 1966, triggering an extensive eradication program that lasted nine years. But the ravenous snails returned to Miami in 2011, prompting a decade of eradication efforts that cost $23 million. Not surprisingly, they\u2019re back, having been spotted last summer in nearby Pasco County, as well as more recently in Broward and Lee Counties. Areas in those counties will be treated with toxic snail bait (metaldehyde) dozens of times over a lengthy period, followed by repeated surveys. In addition, sections of affected neighborhoods will be under a quarantine prohibiting the movement of plants and soil out of those zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But why do these giant mollusks \u2013 so potentially detrimental to Florida\u2019s agriculture and woodlands \u2013 keep showing up? Predictably, the answer is ignorance. Not only are they imported and sold as pets (although that\u2019s illegal), they\u2019re deliberately brought into the U.S. by international travelers. Indeed, customs officials at Detroit Metropolitan Airport confiscated a half-dozen living snails in the luggage of someone who had just visited Ghana. Presumably they were destined for the dinner table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your reaction to giant land snails is &#8220;big deal,&#8221; you need to reconsider. Think of the Sunshine State\u2019s thriving nursery industry, growing and shipping everything from ferns to orchids around the world. Sales would quickly cease if even a single shipment included snails or their eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remarkably, for giant African land snails, it doesn\u2019t take two to tango: Because each individual has both male and female reproductive organs, a single snail can wreak eventual havoc. As for eggs, a batch can contain as many as 500 of them, ready to release an insatiable horde of baby snails. If you discover what you suspect is an invasive snail, contact your local extension service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Florida, the brown- and yellow-shelled snails \u2013 native to West Africa \u2013 have become a recurrent nightmare. Not only do they devour almost any kind of vegetation; the critters&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[2421],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58277,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58275\/revisions\/58277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}