Giant African Land Snail Has Been Spotted Again in Florida

Giant African Snail:
Introduced to Florida in 1966
Took 10 years and $1 million to eradicate
Rediscovered in 2011
Rediscovered again in 2022
Consumes >500 types of plants, causes structural damage to plaster and stucco structures, carries a parasitic nematode that can cause meningitis in humans

MIAMI — The giant African land snail, which can grow to the size of a fist and carry a parasite that causes meningitis, was declared eradicated from South Florida last year after a decade-long battle of people versus pests.

They’re baaack.

The dreaded snails — known to invasive-species connoisseurs as GALS — were spotted in June by a gardener in Pasco County, north of Tampa, the first time a population of them has been detected outside of South Florida.

To try to contain them, state officials placed a portion of Pasco County in the New Port Richey area under quarantine this week. No plants, yard waste, debris, compost or building materials can lawfully be moved out without permission, for fear that the clingy mollusks will spread. The quarantine extends from a radius of about a half-mile from the identified snail population and may change or grow if more snails are found.

The snails’ return was a surprising and unwelcome development in a state where the wildlife routinely makes headlines — a record-breaking, 215-pound Burmese python was caught in the Everglades late last year — and where invasive species routinely wreak havoc. During an especially rainy spring a few years ago, exterminators in Palm Beach County received a surge of calls about Bufo toads, whose toxin is so poisonous that it can kill dogs, found mating in pools.