Dangerous African Snails found in Davie, Florida

More giant African land snails caught

COURTESY, JAMES CRUM
Giant African land snail facts
Giant African land snails invade South Florida

By David Fleshler, Sun Sentinel
4:42 pm, September 10, 2014

About 50 giant African land snails were caught Wednesday in Davie, as the Florida Department of Agriculture tried to contain an invasion of Broward County by the voracious, disease-carrying mollusks.

Agriculture workers went to a house on 136th Avenue in western Davie and adjacent properties, using rakes to comb the moist underbrush where the snails live and working with two dogs trained to sniff them out.

The snails, thought to have been imported for religious purposes by a Santeria sect, eat plaster and stucco on houses, can carry a parasite that causes meningitis and are considered a threat to Florida agriculture. They have colonized several neighborhoods in Miami-Dade County, and their discovery this week in Davie represented their first known appearance in Broward.

If you think you have these snails on your property, you can report it to the Florida Department of Agriculture at 1-888-397-1517.

Thank you much.

Did some research. Fl. seems to get a large influx of exotics both plants and animals. One page gave the care of the snails as pets. How anyone could want that for a pet is beyond me.
They are a real threat to agriculture. Hope they don't get up this far north for a while.

Fl. spends a fortune on trying to eradicate both exotic plants and animals. I was dist. sec. for Fl. Park Service for yeas and used to order Roundup by the 5 gal. bucket trying to kill off Brazilian peppers on Weedon Island but it didn't help much. Also bulldozer work there and that's just 1 example.

I'll keep at eye out for any around here.

Bonnie D.

oh wow!...good to know...i live in davie as well...i'll be keeping an eye out for sure

Sheesh! I hardly ever see snails in my garden...thank goodness.

Never see any here either. They are said to like ponds but never have seen any in or on pond plants either. Guess that's a good thing.

Bonnie