CNN: “3,000 Snails Travel 3,000 Miles”
CNN has highlighted an effort to preserve the Lesser Bermuda land snail in an article entitled “3,000 snails travel 3,000 miles in an effort to save a species.”
The CNN website said, “Last month a wooden crate containing 1,000 adult snails and 2,000 juveniles embarked on a 3,000-mile journey from a zoo in the north of England to Bermuda.
“The snails were carefully packed inside the crate, alongside wet tissues that helped maintain the temperature during the seven-hour flight, and green beans for an in-flight meal.
Last month a wooden crate containing 3,000 snails traveled from the north of England to Bermuda as part of a conservation project to prevent the lesser Bermuda land snail from going extinct. https://t.co/4jhabIHxbE
— CNN International (@cnni) June 22, 2023
“The box traveled alongside regular cargo, with just a few labels to distinguish its precious and unusual contents: ‘Live Animals,’ ‘This End Up,’ and ‘3,000 lesser Bermuda land snails.’ There was nothing to indicate that these animals, when released, could represent the future of an entire species.
“Lesser Bermuda land snails, as the name suggests, originate from the archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, but a number of threats over the last five decades have reduced populations of the species significantly and it is now classified as critically endangered. In 2017, 60 of the remaining individuals were sent to Gerardo Garcia, head of ectotherms [cold-blooded species] at Chester Zoo, in an effort to save the species from extinction.”
You can read the full story here on CNN.
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Category: All, Environment, News
Another fascinating story , much like the cahow miracle , that almost shouldn’t have been .
Having grown up in a large farming neighborhood and still doing much yard work/gardening I’ve never seen one of these alive .
Their fossilized shells were a common sight in soft limestone cliffs on South Shore when I was kid though . Never thought that they’d ever be re-discovered and revived again .
The repopulation will move at a snail’s pace.