A few months after discovering the snails, Moye initiated an eradication project with his students and others on campus. We'd go every week collecting and destroying egg cases and snails. Unfortunately, around that time, with the wet weather, the stream had begun to extend off property. On October 29, a major thunderstorm dumped about four inches of rian. We came awfully close.
Apple snails are common aquarium pets, suited to the tropics.
But outside the confines of a freshwater tank, they can ravage plants of all kinds. The South American Pomacea canaliculata arrived here in 1989 as a food source and aquarium pet. In a 1992 survey, he found the snails in just five. Still, their spread is worrisome. They eat almost everything in sight in terms of aquatic vegetation.