Barbados Snails

We've heard about locusts and the usual crop pests, but snails? And they're not just snails, the Barbados snails are actually giant versions. They are normally the size of a person's hand, making these slimy creatures a graver threat to the island's agricultural resources.

Achatina Fulica, or more familiarly the Giant African Snail, was first thought to have been seen on the island of Barbados on September 27, 2000. Not long after, on October 9, 2000 to be precise, the hunch was confirmed. Although these Giant African Snails are natives of the humid parts of the south of the Sahara, and eastern Africa, they have now started to widen their habitat to include other places as well - Barbados included.

The Barbados snails as some people now call the Giant African Snails, were first seen in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1989. These snails, being polyphagous, are considered as some of the world's most destructive land snails. They were reported to have attacked more than 500 plants species, but are observed to have the preference for cassava, peanut and rubber, breadfruit, cocoa, and papaya. The adults may have the fetish for rotten organic matter, but the young ones are for the living plants like vegetables and flowers.

The giants snails that first caused a scare in Barbados in 2000 have made a comeback. St. George's central parish has become the latest target of the November 6, 2006 Barbados snails' invasion. The bad news about this latest attack is the fact that St. George is the country's major agricultural source.

Volunteers and government agencies worked doubly hard to eradicate the presence of these Barbados snails. According to some volunteers, the snails are going about in clusters, and you basically step on shells when you're walking around. The volunteers were busy catching snails at night as they emerge from under the ground. They also sprayed pesticides in areas where snails mostly thrive and breed in.

Farmers complain about the Barbados snails because the adults can grow as huge as a human's hand and are voracious eaters, consuming up to 500 different plants. They are not only a threat to the agricultural industry of the island, but to the well-being of its residents as well. The snails' mucous can transmit diseases like meningitis, making these pests a health hazard as well.

Snails may be slow creatures, but that characteristic doesn't seem to apply to their reproduction capabilities. The giant ones can actually lay eggs of up to 400, which can all hatch within 8 to 21 days. If people don't work twice as hard to eliminate these pests, the snails may for once prove that they can actually move faster than humans.