Doc to assess giant snail captivity programme

Powelliphanta snail. Photo: Doc
Powelliphanta snail. Photo: Doc
The Department of Conservation says it is doing a full assessment of its giant snail captivity programme, previously funded by Solid Energy.

Just over 6000 Powelliphanta augustus snails were relocated from the summit of Mount Augustus, on the Stockton Plateau, in 2006 and 2007 to allow Solid Energy to mine the coal seam underneath.

This followed legal action as Solid Energy fought to access $400 million worth of high quality coal.

As a result, the snails were moved to a refrigerated compound at the Doc headquarters in Hokitika. The snail captivity programme cost about $125,000 a year, with snails progressively released back to the plateau over the past decade. However, Solid Energy is now defunct and a question mark hangs over the future of the programme.

Doc operations manager Ian McClure said they were getting an assessment of the snail programme that would be completed by the end of April.

"This will help inform the future management of the snails and how much more captive management is required," Mr McClure said.

Currently about 1000 snails and 650 eggs are held at Hokitika.

So far about 7400 snails and 2250 eggs have been released to sites in the wild.

The captive population costs about $50,000 a year to maintain.

"While the goal of the overall programme is to return all of the snails to the wild, and we are continuing to do releases of snails to sites in the wild, no decision has been made to release all of the snails," Mr McClure said in response to questions.
 

- Laura Mills

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