Destructive, Fist-Sized Invasive Apple Snail Moving Steadily Towards Mobile-Tensaw Delta

[hatrack]

MOBILE, Alabama -- The snail bobbed at the surface of Three Mile Creek, a fist-sized biological time bomb drifting ever closer to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and ever closer to making biologists’ nightmares come true.

Dave Armstrong, with the state Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, let out a groan when told that an Amazonian snail was found floating about 100 yards downstream from the Conception Street bridge Wednesday afternoon, little more than a mile upstream from the edge of the Delta.

Since the South American snails were discovered in Alabama — first in the pond at Langan Park, then downstream in Three Mile Creek — the state’s prime directive has been to keep the creatures out of the Delta, one of the largest wetland areas in North America.

The snails have a voracious appetite for aquatic plants, and the Wednesday find was proof that the gastropods remain a threat despite an intense multi-year effort to eradicate them.

EDIT

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/12/the_snail_that_wont_die.html

[MADem]

1. Bummer. How will they stop them?

Giant Frenchmen with butter sauce?

Hopefully they'll find a way to eradicate them without screwing up the ecology of the area.

[msongs]

2. Alabama? arrest them for being illegal immigrants. do the snails look like Mexicans at all? nt

[Odin2005]

3. DAYUM, those suckers are HUGE!!!

:wow: