Here’s Why People Are Keeping These Gigantic Snails As Pets

Through the years, we have seen people posting pictures of their exotic pets online. One of them was a Twitter from Denver who created quite a stir when he tweeted about his pet rabbit being sick. However, the photo he posted does not look like a rabbit. As a matter of fact, it was a large African land snail that he refer to as his pet rabbit.

Some people online were amazed by how huge this snail is while others were simply creeped out. There are people asking how this man could see a gigantic snail as a pet rabbit? Many might not find them cute but others think they are adorable.

When these people consider these giant snails as pets, the U.S. Department of Agriculture thinks otherwise. In fact, the department considers these snails as pests. That is why they have banned them.

According to the Department of Agriculture, these giant African Snails migrated to the U.S. in the 60s. The first giant snail that reaches American soil was the one brought by a boy from South Florida. He visited Hawaii and managed to smuggle in three of these snails. Seven years later, the three snails multiplied to over 18,000 in Florida.

With the rapid of their population and the fact that snails eat plants, they are considered pests.

The African Land Snail is native to Africa but they can also thrive in hot, wet places around the world. They are nocturnal which means they are creatures of the night. They are by far the largest snails that we know in existence. There are more than 500 kinds of these snails that love to feed on plants.

They reproduce at an alarming rate too. The adult snail can produce up to 1,200 eggs in a year. These giant snails have a life span of about five and seven years. And these African snails feed on plants. This is why they present a problem for the agriculture industry of any country.

Also, the main habitat of these snails is agricultural areas. That is why their presence is a threat to agricultural crops. The snails feed on plants and their increase in numbers is so rapid. This means that the higher their number is, the more plants they would destroy. Their size and appetite are enough reasons to see them as a threat. If they happen to come near your plants, remember that these giant African snails can devour crops overnight. And if they enter and multiply without control, it becomes a problem.

It seems like they are not confined to plants. They also like feeding on stucco and concrete and anything that has calcium. And if they continue to increase in number without control, they can destroy our food supply. They can also be a threat to our establishments.

The threat of the giant African snail is more than to agriculture and infrastructure. They can also pose a serious threat to the health of human beings. You see, these African snails are also carriers of parasites like the rat lungworm parasite. They also carry salmonella bacteria.

This proves that there are good reasons to prevent the giant African land snail from gaining ground in the country.