pomacea insularum

[allysangels]

so on my last trip to one of the waterways in my subdivision, i walked out into the pier, and was looking at the plants growing up out of the water. i remember thinking "my, what pretty pink flowers everywhere", until i looked closer and realized that these were no flowers, but clusters of apple snail eggs! i picked a couple huge snails bigger than my fist right out of the water, and brought them home to ID them, sure enough, these are "island apple snails", pomacea insularum. they are classified as exotic invasives, and they have been reported in a few locations around the houston area, but i've never seen them in these waters before! so i destroyed the 2 that i had brought home, and tried to find who to report this to. texas dept of parks and wildlife was no help, theres a site for texas invasives, but they don't take reports on these snails. i've contacted a couple people at colleges that are conducting studies on similar invasions, but no one seems to care. what do????? here are some pics of one that tried to lay eggs in my igloo cooler! (ALL HAVE BEEN DESTROYED)
IMG_1647.jpgIMG_1651.jpg

[mistahoo]

Whoa! That's crazy! That's a lot of eggs.You just destroyed them? I know there's a lot of supermarkets that sell them frozen for food. Snails are quite tasty!

[sunkenmetal]

know anyone with a big puffer lol

[allysangels]

tasty they might be but they are illegal to possess or transport in texas. so i destroyed them.

[sunkenmetal]

doesn't seem like anyone cares.

[mistahoo]

doesn't seem like anyone cares.

+1 lol

[Sea-agg09]

All apple snails are a pain around here. Unfortunately parks and wildlife has no$$$ to really do anything about it. Parks and wildlife may want to take a report, but that's about as far as it will go at this point. Now if a store is selling them... then a hefty fine comes into play, and TPWD will jump on that.

[sunkenmetal]

So unless they can make money they don't care lol

[allysangels]

doesn't seem like anyone cares.

from what i've heard, there may be people on this forum who care.

[Totenkampf]

call in the french, escargo attack

[mnemenoi]

Their empty shells make great homes for shellies....

[Fancyfish]

That is a awesome picture of the snail laying eggs!

[ometh]

Puffer food!

[allysangels]

would have to be a huge puffer! these things were bigger than my fist!

[Fancyfish]

As far as controling them/removing them what would you suggest the goverment agency's do? I can't think of anything they could do that wouldn't hurt the native wildlife. :(