Louisiana rice and crawfish farmers could be in danger of an invasive, apple-sized species of snails, according to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries.Apple snails, which can grow to be the size of an apple, are beginning to spread throughout the state, said Brac Salyers, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries biologist. Salyers said the snails were first seen in a drainage basin near Gretna in 2006 and have spread to Mandeville and Schriever. “Once [the snails] get established in a waterway, they can produce at such a rate the aquatic vegetation can’t keep up,” Salyers said. The creatures are harmful because they can destroy crops and clean out other species in ponds, ditches and streams and continue producing at an amazing rate. Apple snails can lay between 600 and 800 eggs every two weeks, he said.The invasive creatures are also plaguing Southeast Asia, where some areas have 100 percent crop failure, Salyers said. In Louisiana, the snails have not destroyed any rice crops, but the department is concerned the creatures will swim into the coastline and spread to rice crops and crawfish farms. Though the snails’ origins in Louisiana are unknown, they may have been kept as pets in an aquarium and escaped or released into the wild, Salyers said. Once a snail is free, it can began to populate an area.”[Right now] we are just trying to find populations,” he said. “Control of that magnitude is not really possible.”The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is working with the University’s AgCenter to find an effective poison for the species. Dearl Sanders, AgCenter professor and coordinator, is experimenting at the Clinton Research center to find an effective poison. Sanders said none of the chemicals sprayed in rice fields are able to control the snails. The research is going to be given to another station for assistance, he said. Most pesticides that could control the snails in rice fields are not legal, Sanders said. The snails pose a serious threat, and currently the only solution is to control the nests.Apple snails emerge from the water to lay their eggs on shore and on trees, Salyers said. The eggs are colored cotton-candy pink.”Because its so strange, no animal sees it as a food source,” he said. The good news is some animals eat the young snails, but after they grow larger, only raccoons and otters feed on them, Salyers said. —-Contact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]