Conservation at a snail's pace (From Daily Echo)

Conservation at a snail's pace at Marwell

11:50am Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Winchester

THESE rare snails as so tiny they fit on a fingertip – but a Hampshire wildlife park is playing its part in the battle to save them.

Marwell Wildlife, near Winchester, is now breeding a further four species of Partula snails to add to their collection.

Since being introduced five years ago, the charity now has eight species of the snail, which are either extinct in the wild or critically endangered.

More than 800 snails are now on view in the park. In some of the species the park has 50 per cent of the world’s population.

Geoff Read, Marwell’s Herptile and Invertebrates manager, said the snails have gone into decline in recent years, suffering from habitat loss and the introduction of a carnivorous snail in the 1970s.

Originally, the snails were found only on islands in the Pacific Ocean, ranging more than 8,000km from Palau to the Society Islands in French Polynesia.

This year conservationists from the International Partula Conservation Programme will introduce snails into reserves on the islands with a view to releasing them into the wild.

The problems began for the snails when African land snails were introduced to the Pacific islands. To stop them eating crops the predatory Florida rosy wolfsnail was introduced in 1974, but instead of eating the African land snails they fed on the tree snails leading to the extinction of many of the Partula species.

Partula snails live up to ten years, grow up to 2.5cm in length and give birth to one baby every three months.