Many farmers and householders in Anguilla, particularly in The Valley area and its immediate outskirts, are having a time of their life battling with the Giant African Snail.

Feast of death (consuming snail bait)

What is even more frustrating is that just when they think they are winning the fight, the larger creatures they succeed in killing are being replaced by swarms of newborns lumbering around in their tiny shells and gnawing at any foliage in their way. Thus the cycle of destruction of vegetables and other greenery is continuing unabatedly as the marauding and loathsome snails slowly make their way across the island.

Laying eggs in death throes

“They are now marching into North Hill,” one irritated backyard gardener called The Anguillian recently. He did not stop there. He argued that “the Government and the developers should come together to rid the island of the menace” now fast becoming out of control. Another farmer threw his hands into the air as he surveyed the destruction of his garden. “It is a plague,” he declared.

On a coconut palm leaf

Of late, with the increasing need for more local produce, which is fetching good prices at hotels, restaurants and road-side stalls, more and more young farmers are becoming involved in farming. Various verdant and flourishing agricultural plots are springing up almost everywhere. They can be seen on Crown lands in The Valley and Wallblake and in various privately-owned areas, many with expensive irrigation systems in place. It is a renewed interest in agriculture that must be encouraged.

The Government and the Governor’s Office have recognised the farming needs on the island and have both made available large sums of money for the purchase of two modern tractors with multi-purpose attachments. As a result both the Department of Agriculture and the National Farmers’ Association are providing quicker and better ploughing services to farmers.

On a coconut palm leaf

But the Giant African Snail remains a growing threat to be reckoned with. They congregate under vegetables and eat away at the soft stems and leaves, reducing them to tatters by morning. They are quite agile with the ability to climb tall plants like the papaya tree where they eat the blossoms. Then to the annoyance of home-owners they crawl up the walls leaving unsightly trails of defecation. At window height, they appear bent on entering the house and in some cases have succeeded.
Down on the ground they strive under shady and damp conditions among rotten leaves and other debris and lay clusters of yellow eggs. As will be explained later by Rhon Connor, the strange phenomenon is that there are no male and female snails as such. Any two snails, after mating, can produce eggs!

Another matter is that the snails are not usually in circulation during drought but when it rains at night they appear in large numbers by break of day. It is then that they are crushed on the roads by vehicles or in the yard and gardens by persons. Invariably something interesting then happens: in their death throes quantities of eggs roll out from their shells as if in a last effort to give new life to their species.

The Weapon of Snail Bait
There are some effective chemical weapons against the Giant African Snails. Perhaps the one most used is called “MP-S: One last meal for snails and slugs” and comprises small blue pellets packed in 10-pound bags as well as in one-pound packages. This snail bait was first made available by the Agricultural Department which for a while freely sprinkled it in various neighbourhoods where the snails had made their way. There were complaints however that the substance posed a threat to children and in some cases pets were poisoned. As a result that form of distribution was discontinued. The department continued to stock the bait on a subsidised basis but with the understanding that persons being affected by the snails would purchase it and do the protective work themselves.

The price was reasonable for some time but, as William Vanterpool, Director of Agriculture, will explain later, the cost had to be significantly increased when the subsidy was no longer available. The snail bait, in other varieties and forms, is also available at Ace business place and at Lake’s World where the prices and containers of supply also vary.

Rhon Connor: Any Snail Can Produce Eggs
To find out more about the snails, The Anguillian interviewed Rhon Connor, President of the Anguilla National Trust and Senior Environmental Officer (Sustainable Development) in the Department of Environment. Mr. Connor, who recently did a thesis on the Giant African Snail for his Master’s degree in Biological Conservation at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said the scientific name for the snail is Achapina Fulica. He decided to study the snail, which he described as “an invasive species”, because it was presenting a major problem in Anguilla.

According to Mr. Connor, at the time of his study, he found that the snails had invaded 20 village areas of the island but was now believed to be practically all over Anguilla. He said the snails originated in East Africa in such states as Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and that as a result of trade and transportation they were able to spread further a-field. “They can attach themselves to vehicles or embed themselves in plants and other exports and as a result find themselves throughout the world,” he explained. “In terms of the Caribbean region they were first sighted in Guadeloupe in 1985 and by 1988 they spread to Martinique and by 2000 were in Barbados, St. Lucia and probably around the same time in St. Maarten and Anguilla.”

Asked about the reproduction of the snails, Mr. Connor said: “Any two can mate and produce eggs. There is no such thing as a male and female. In terms of sexuality, both of them can produce eggs so that is one of the major challenges and why they are so successful. One snail can lay as many as 1,200 eggs in a year. They have a reproduction circle like three times a year and in one nesting they can produce from 200 to 400 eggs.”

He went on: “The Giant African Snail has always been a major challenge in terms of eradication. We have to more or less speak about control. Controlling the snails is quite a task mainly because of the amount of eggs they lay. Sometimes you may buy bait from the Agricultural Department which is quite costly…and that cost which may not have been budgeted for is going to build up, but we have to do it if not the snails will continue to multiply. There must be some sort of national campaign to decrease the number of snails throughout the island. That will be quite a task but it can be done through several different methods. One is getting teams to go into the infested areas and apart from killing the snails they will have to try to look for the eggs and that will be a major problem because there are hundreds and hundreds of eggs.”

Effects of Heat and Predators
He said that during his studies, apart from concentrating on the distribution of the snails in Anguilla, he focussed on three main habitats as to where they had as preference. One of the habitats was the woodlands with extremely tall trees; another low-lying shrubs and the third habitat was grass beds. “The results of the study showed that the grass beds and the shrub lands had a greater abundance of snails,” he reported. He was of the view that one of the reasons that large quantities of snails were not in the woodlands was because they were still relatively new to Anguilla and the woodlands were further away in the undeveloped areas of the island.

Mr. Connor stated that because of their soft bodies the snails were unable to take the heat of the sun notwithstanding their protective shells. “During the heat they will go into crevices or under mulch and any sort of dry leaves or any area where they can find some moisture,” he said. “They seal off themselves and wait until the right conditions. As soon as there is rain you will see them coming out by the hundreds.”

According to him, the snails are born with a covering membrane which develops as a shell and grows with them. “You will find that the snails attach themselves to rocks and anything that can give them calcium and that helps them to grow extremely fast,” he further explained.

Questioned about the snails’ venerability to predators as a means of reducing their numbers, Connor replied: “Some of the predators may be rats and a few birds may pick at them, but they are not the natural predators for the Giant African Snail. Those predators would be in East Africa where the snails originated.

“In Hawaii they introduced a predator snail to attack the Giant African Snail and that snail came from South America… but instead of attacking the Giant African Snail those snails preyed on some snails that were endemic to Hawaii. As a result about nine species of the Hawaiian snails were almost wiped out so introducing a predator (a form of biological control) is not always the best option.”

Eating Giant African Snails
Mr. Connor was asked whether, in the circumstances, Anguilla was facing an insurmountable problem. “Yeah, I would say so but we can reduce it by introducing measures that would control the number of snails that are here and that effort has to be continuous. We have to organise our communities into a national campaign. Civic society and the Government have to work hand in hand to control the problem,” he asserted.

The Anguillian Environmentalist was asked whether he had any knowledge, as reports suggested, that there were people who were eating the African Snails which were thought to cause meningitis and other illnesses.

“That is quite interesting,” he laughed. “During my research and even after completion, quite a number of persons told me that they knew of individuals who eat the snails. That can be quite unhealthy. Yes, some species of snails are considered to be delicacies and are eaten by some persons. The Giant African Snail may be a delicacy in some European countries but it can be very dangerous especially if it is not cooked thoroughly. Based on my readings some studies have stated that people get meningitis, severe headaches and other illnesses. In some cases some persons have actually died.”

Trail of mess on wall

Connor warned that persons coming into contact with the mucus from the snails could possibly suffer blisters or lesions and other skin rashes. He also stated that some species of snails were also known to affect animals. “When they eat the grass in which the snails were crawling, the slime or mucus from them can cause the animals to get diarrhoea and some of them can actually die,” he said.

Vanterpool: Snails Almost out of Control
As mentioned earlier, late last year The Anguillian also interviewed William Vanterpool, Director of Agriculture, who agreed that the African Snail situation “was almost out control” in Anguilla.

He continued: “When the situation arose, we got some money from the Ministry of Finance to import supplies of snail bait and we were actually spreading it ourselves and that worked very well. However, support for the programme has eased off and we are now trying to get assistance from an overseas agency and Government. At the moment we do not have enough funds to buy the snail bait and to do it ourselves so we are now buying it and people are being asked to use the bait around their premises.

Feasting on papaya blossoms

“That however is not a sustainable way of doing it because if the neighbours are not doing it, the snails can easily move from one area to the other. We have asked Government in our capital project to give us some funds so that we could do a comprehensive spread of the snail bait throughout the island.”

Snail Bait: Price and Dangers
Mr. Vanterpool was told about complaints that the price of a 10-pond bag of snail bait had been increased from EC$25 to $100. He replied: “The actual price of the snail bait out of Puerto Rico is just over US$40 (about EC$108). We were initially subsidising the price. However, because of lack of funds, and that we had to buy it from our own supplies, it was necessary for us to recover the money and so we have to charge the full price.” He gave the assurance that when his department obtained the necessary funding from the Government and the overseas partner, the supply and spreading of the bait may be done without cost to the public.

Questioned about reports that his department had stopped spreading the snail bait because of fears of poisoning in the community, Mr. Vanterpool stated: “There were a number of Anguillians who were concerned and making noise saying that we would poison their children and pets so the Attorney General’s Chambers advised us to stop it because of the liability to Government. Instead, it was suggested that the farmers should be allowed to do it themselves or that we show them how to do it.”

Asked whether there was indeed a threat to pets in particular, Vanterpool responded: “There is a threat if the snail bait is not used properly. We had a situation where one or two dogs died. It was a situation where they cut the bags opened having mistaken the bait for dog food and ate it in large quantities. If it is sprinkled the animals won’t eat it, but if it is piled up it could be taken for dog food of other animal food and then it could be a problem.”

Mr. Vanterpool was asked about reports that the snails were considered to be a delicacy. “Initially when it came out and we were not sure which snail it was,” was his response. “We put out a report advising persons that they should be careful because some snails are poisonous. We have found out that these snails are really not poisonous. In fact there are people here who eat them. Not a lot of people are eating them, but I know there are local people who prepare the snails for themselves and other people.”

Well, whatever is the augment about whether the Giant African Snails are good or bad to be eaten by humans, it is certainly something for debate. Those (if really any) who think that the creatures are a delicacy may be very few in number.

The real business and complaints of farmers and home-owners on the island are on a different wave length. They are saying that the snails are a destructive and growing pest to their vegetable crops, a menace to the cleanliness of the walls of their homes and that their control or possibly eradication must be worked at with all urgency and vigour.
Nat Hodge

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