Page 34 - Waterfall Issue 4 2021

Waterfall Nature

ThE GLobETRoTTING

GIANT AFRIcAN

LAND SNAIL

Is it a cute snail on steroids, or a threat to the world

environment?

By Josh Truter, Photos by Josh Truter, Ken Walker and Timur V. Voronkov

I n 1966, a kid from Miami, Florida, brought three

giant snails home, smuggled in his luggage all the
way from Hawaii. For whatever reason, he thought
they would make cool gifts for his grandmother.
Perhaps Grandma was one of those ‘off the wall’ kinds of
people but this time round she was not impressed with
the new pets, so she threw them out into her garden.
Seven years later, the Florida Department of Agriculture
estimated there were more than 18 000 of these exotic
invasive pests in the state, wreaking havoc on crops and
causing damage to buildings. It took them more than
a decade to eradicate them, only to see a resurgence in
2011. To date, they are still fighting the battle to save
Florida’s agricultural industry from the plague of snails.

32 Waterfall Issue 4 2021