Monday, February 3, 2014

Giant African Land Snail invades South Florida - Sun Sentinel

Beware the 8 inch, mucus-covered snail, coming to a neighborhood near you. This is one of those "only in Florida" stories. Imagine, they can partner up with iguanas, pythons and walking catfish. Click title for link to article.
And the oversized, mucus-drenched mollusks are poised to move north from Miami-Dade County, where agriculture officials are preparing to unleash dogs in their two-year battle to wipe out the pest. The snail-detecting dogs will join a force of 50 snail hunters, along with a public awareness campaign, that is finally winning a grudging victory over the snails.
Their numbers may be slowly diminishing, but the snails' capacity for movement isn't.
"They're definitely knocking on the door up in Broward," said Omar Garcia, a Miami-based snail wrangler for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "A lot of people are puzzled why we haven't discovered one there yet. It's something that we expect someday."