I'm losing the battle with invasive giant (mutant ninja) snails. Actually they don't seem to cause any problem but just seem to coat the bottom in the shallows. I'm guessing they came in when the neighbor 'kindly' bucket stocked my pond with the remnants of his aquarium which included adult snails. Every year I have taken out a few 5 gallon bucket loads of adult snails by hand.
Now they tend to stay in about a foot of water, not many out deeper than that, and as we get high water after a rain they go into the shallows more. I had 2 overflows of my pond with heavy rains this month and many of the adults stayed stranded up in the grass when the water receded.
I figured as my YP (and RES the few I have) got larger they would eat the tiny snails (they bear live young, so the babies got to be small enough for a large YP to eat?) But this year apparently the YP didn't get the memo because my shallows are must loaded with 1/2" to 3/4" diameter tiny snails. The adults by comparison are about 2" or more.
The tiny snails have very soft thin shells so I'm sure the RES could eat them. Once in the shallows you would think the coons would wade in and feast on them, but no. Do owls or raptors eat these things?
If I new a way to get them to crawl out of their shells or soften their shells I would throw the snails (minus the shell) back in and they would be quick treats for my larger YP
So I raked and raked yesterday and the shore looks like it hailed snails. When they die off it stinks and we get flies...
Oh well, there are at least 10,000 less snails in the pond now.
Is there such a thing as a selective 'snail.i.cide'?
