There is a new invasive species from Asia that is spreading across the U.S., and this one appears it is here to stay.
The Chinese mystery snail has started to pop up in lakes located in states from Texas and Georgia to as far north as Ontario over the past few years.
In Texas , officials with the Texas Parks and Wildlife have alerted residents to report any sightings of the mystery snails, saying: "These invasive species carry parasites, clog water intake pipes and compete with native snails."
Georgia is having a similar problem in some of its lakes, which have become overrun with the snails.
Jim Page, a fisheries biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources ' Wildlife Resources Division , tells Inside Edition Digital that residents in his state are no longer allowed to own the snails as pets as they try and combat the spread, and also warned people against consuming the snail.
"It carries a couple of different intestinal parasites, as well as a parasite known as rat lungworm, which is one that really has kind of gained a lot of media attention to some degree in recent years," Page says.
While these parasites largely only impact other wildlife in the ecosystem, they can infect humans, particularly if they are being consumed, he says.
"If you're going to eat them, then you're taking a risk, because these parasites can certainly be transferred to people. And if they make you sick, it's going to be a really bad day, especially depending on the thing that you get. If it's rat lungworm, that one can be fatal, not all the time, but can be so," Page says,
The goal of speaking on this, he says, is public awareness and letting people know the risks presented by these snails.
It is crucial that people know the risks because removing the snails is proving to be a daunting challenge for officials, and it is likely that in some communities these snails are here to stay, he says.
Chinese mystery snails present a unique set of challenges to government agencies working to stop their spread for several reasons, and multiple officials tell Inside Edition Digital that eradication is not even a possibility due to the fact that females will give birth to over 150 offspring in their lifetime and as many as 100 offspring in a single brood.
Chinese mystery snails also do not lay eggs like most snails do, and instead give live birth to fully formed snails with shells after incubating the embryos in the female's shell.
"It actually gives them a competitive advantage over other snails," says Brook Schryer, assistant coordinator with the Ontario-based Invading Species Awareness Program (ISAP).
"When you have a species that lays eggs that creates a situation where those eggs are vulnerable to predation or water changes or drought or something like that," he says. "There's all sorts of threats to those things, but when they're being incubated within the female snail, it gives them a much better likelihood of actually surviving, at least to their adolescence."
Established in 1992 by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry , the ISAP has removed an astonishing number of mystery snails that had invaded the Canadian province.
There are numerous other reasons why these snails thrive. They have a shell that is hard enough to protect them from predators and an ability to live in climates with temperatures that range from 32 F to over 100 F, which is why they can be found in both Texas and Canada .
Chinese mystery snails also have the ability to survive months outside of water, as Schryer learned first-hand during ISAP removal efforts in Ontario.
He and a group of resource professions removed approximately 3,000 snails during a retreat a few years back, and Schryer says he took two bags of the snails to euthanize them in the woods behind his home. "It's an aquatic species, you put them out of the water, they're going to die," Schryer says of his mindset at the time.
A hole was dug and Schryer dumped in the snails, assuming they would dry out and die. That was not the case.
"What ended up happening was a few months later, I actually went to check to see if raccoons or other wildlife had actually consumed any of them, and unfortunately, they hadn't, and the pile was still undisturbed," Schryer says.
Then, he noticed that the shells still had a weight to them when he picked them up, which would not be the case if the snails were dead.
"I took some inside and put them back in water, and sure enough, they came back to life. So they spent three months out of water and were still very much alive, and came back to life in the aquarium. So it shows you how resilient they are to being dried out," Schryer says.
In 2021, Schryer says that he and his team began their efforts to get rid of the invasive species, and to date they have removed over one million snails.
This feat was accomplished with the help of many volunteers, who Schryer says were largely retirees picking up shells by hand.
"We're never going to achieve eradication, that's probably an unrealistic expectation, especially with just physical removal. But at the same time, just to see these people going out there doing this is so rewarding and inspirational, Schryer says.
Despite those removal efforts, residents in Ontario, Texas and Georgia are actually discouraged from moving mystery snails from their location.
In Georgia, residents are instructed to photograph the snails and submit details on where they found the snail on the DNR's Report Invasive Species Link .
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asks residents who come across mystery snails to take a picture and send it to aquaticinvasives@tpwd.texas.gov.
And in Ontario, sightings of mystery snails can be reported on the ISAP website .
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