“Snail Crew” removes 642 invasive applesnails from Lower Salt River
On Thursday we removed around 642 applesnails and 8,393 of their egg masses from the Lower Salt River.
Applesnails have the potential to impact the fish community in the Lower Salt River by outcompeting our resident snails (like pond snails and ramshorn snails). Pond snails and ramshorn snails are one component of the food base for native and sport fish in the river. Fish don’t feed on applesnails — they’re unpalatable even to crayfish!
This is our ongoing battle against the spread of invasive applesnails. Our search time this day was was 580 minutes.
“If each egg mass had about 200 eggs, then we took out about 1.6 million eggs today,” said AZGFD Invertebrates Program Manager Jeff Sorensen said. “Not bad … a lot less applesnails for the next couple of weeks.
See the story from ABC 15:
How you can help
We encourage you to come help us take the fight to these invasive species by volunteering for our next removal on Aug. 17.
Spend the day kayaking along the beautiful Salt River making a positive change in our ecosystem. To participate, we ask that volunteers become paddle-safety certified by taking a free Arizona Paddlesports class at our Headquarters in Phoenix. Visit https://www.azgfd.com/Education/Boating/ and click the kayaker to register.
Please remember to not release unwanted pets into the wild. Instead, call the Arizona Game and Fish Department and let us help take them off your hands.
