Zoo sends snails back to Tahiti to restore lost wildlife
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Staff at Detroit Zoo in Michigan and St. Louis Zoo in Missouri are sending 500 Partula snails to Tahiti, a territory of French Polynesia, to rebuild populations decimated by an invasive species.
The snails began their journey in Michigan and stopped in Missouri for special feeding before continuing to their native habitat.
Conservationists introduced the predatory rosy wolf snail to Tahiti to control another invasive species, but it instead caused the near-extinction of various Partula snails, which are native tree-dwelling invertebrates and culturally significant to Polynesian communities. Detroit Zoo has bred thousands of Partula snails for reintroduction, and this shipment is part of a larger international program that has already returned 11 Partula species to Tahiti.
Each snail receives a small dot of UV-sensitive paint on its shell, orange for those released in 2026, to help researchers track their progress in the wild. The Audubon Nature Institute in Louisiana also contributed 200 snails to the effort. Experts measure success by observing consistent reproduction and a self-sustaining population within a protected habitat, and they recently celebrated the birth of offspring from reintroduced snails, including the formerly extinct Partula nodosa.
