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Giant snails are invading Miami This undated photo provided by Scott Burton shows a Giant African Land Snail. In an aggressive effort to keep an invasive snail species from making a permanent home in Florida, 117,000 giant African land snails have been captured in the past year. The infestation was discovered in September 2011. Officials hoped they could keep the snail from joining other exotic plant, fish and animal species that have found havens in the state. (AP Photo/Scott Burton) By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - South Florida is fighting a growing infestation of one of the world's most destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster. More than 1,000 of the mollusks are being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first snail was spotted by a homeowner in September 2011, said Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Residents will soon likely begin encountering them more often, crunching them underfoot as the snails emerge from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks, Feiber said. The snails attack "over 500 known species of plants ... pretty much anything that's in their path and green," Feiber said. In some Caribbean countries, such as Barbados, which are overrun with the creatures, the snails' shells blow out tires on the highway and turn into hurling projectiles from lawnmower blades, while their slime and excrement coat walls and pavement. "It becomes a slick mess," Feiber said. A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells. The snails also carry a parasitic rat lungworm that can cause illness in humans, including a form of meningitis, Feiber said, although no such cases have yet been identified in the United States. EXOTIC INVASION The snails' saga is something of a sequel to the Florida horror show of exotic species invasions, including the well-known infestation of giant Burmese pythons, which became established in the Everglades in 2000. There is a long list of destructive non-native species that thrive in the state's moist, subtropical climate. Experts gathered last week in Gainesville, Florida, for a Giant African Land Snail Science Symposium, to seek the best ways to eradicate the mollusks, including use of a stronger bait approved recently by the federal government. Feiber said investigators were trying to trace the snail infestation source. One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals, she said. But many exotic species come into the United States unintentionally in freight or tourists' baggage. "If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products," Feiber said. Authorities are expanding a series of announcements on buses, billboards and in movie theaters urging the public to be on the lookout. The last known Florida invasion of the giant mollusks occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets. His grandmother eventually released the snails into her garden where the population grew in seven years to 17,000 snails. The state spent $1 million and 10 years eradicating them. Feiber said many people unfamiliar with the danger viewed the snails as cute pets. "They're huge, they move around, they look like they're looking at you ... communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that," Feiber said. "But they don't realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don't have any natural enemies and they thrive." (Editing by David Adams and Peter Cooney) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/giant-african-land-snails-miami-117000_n_3079741.html?ir=Weird+News&ref=topbar | |
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"It's not nice to fuck with K.B.! All you haters will see!" - Kitbradley
"The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." - Socrates | |
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are the eatable [Edited 4/15/13 8:50am] "Keep on shilling for Big Pharm!" | |
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fuck!!! GROSS! DISGUSTING!!! WAY TOO BIG!!! | |
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yummy.... cook those right they'd be delicious! | |
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By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of Purgatory! | |
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Perfect! I'm firmly planted in denial | |
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We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves. | |
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Escargot, anyone? "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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Rabid ass possums the size of dogs, flying cockroaches the size of a pinky finger, crabs underfoot in the rain, mini-frogs jumping out of shower drains after floods, and now this
I tell you, just when I start to get homesick for the "natural beauty" of Miami, there's always *$%§$!! like this to remind me why I left | |
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I was just thinking...they already eat alligator and goat dishes in South Florida. If those bad boys aren't poisonous, maybe the all the Foo-Foo-La restaurants there might want to sauteé those bad boys in some garlic butter & French wine and keep it movin'
Lord I have eaten many things, but snails are just the last frontier that I don't think I'll ever manage to cross | |
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You forgot the iguanas and the kimodo dragons... I'm tellin ya...people always come here to retire but Imma find me somewhere else to go because this place just keeps getting weirder by the day, Prince, in you I found a kindred spirit...Rest In Paradise. | |
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[img:$uid]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090908190653/bmnc/images/8/86/Gary_the_snail.gif[/img:$uid] [Edited 4/15/13 15:31pm] | |
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Don't forget hundreds of jelly fish washed up on beaches smelling putrid and rotten in the heat of the sun... There were plenty of flying, crawling, swarming, and slimey critters when I lived there... Of the human variety, too. You could not pay me to move back now! "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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They've got nothing on humans. [Edited 4/15/13 17:37pm] Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.” | |
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I remember that photo - it must be 20 years old! There was a warning issued here about those snails. I think disaster was averted. People caught bringing in exotic wildlife are fined and jailed. I'm the mistake you wanna make | |
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Wow, the strange shit y'all encounter in Miami... | |
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My personal favorite:
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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Wow... | |
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*Will not be visiting Florida anytime soon*
Geesh, and I thought we had problems dealing with the seal situation. | |
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I kid you not...one day there was a black bug in my house with green glowing eyes...never found out what the hell it was, Prince, in you I found a kindred spirit...Rest In Paradise. | |
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Wow...lol | |
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With flying cockroaches......I agree with the above. surviving on the thought of loving you, it's just like the water
I ain't felt this way in years... | |
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Yeah, our critters there are science fiction-grade | |
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You know??? It's a beautiful place, but we don't want to be swinging our canes and walking sticks around going to war with all these fanatsy movie animals everywhere! For all that sunshine and beautiful sand, you know this would be us at 80, beating down alligators and swatting Palmetto Bugs:
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ALL OF YOU | |
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Is there absolutely nothing that you miss about Florida? The weather? Food? The sea? " I´d rather be a stank ass hoe because I´m not stupid. Oh my goodness! I got more drugs! I´m always funny dude...I´m hilarious! Are we gonna smoke?" | |
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I never understood the allure of Florida. All of the stories I've heard about the various bugs and critters that show up in people's homes alone is enough to scare the crap out of me! I mean, just the thought of sweltering in the hot sun 365 days of the year is a HUGE turn-off for me but when you throw in shit like giant, black bugs invading your home and lizards crawling up the kitchen wall? Forget that shit! I'd rather shovel 3 inches of snow a few days out of the year anytime! I don't do bugs, rodents and reptiles. "It's not nice to fuck with K.B.! All you haters will see!" - Kitbradley
"The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." - Socrates | |
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