Workshop seeks to bar entry of snails, slugs

The Northern Marianas College-Cooperative Research Education and Extension Services announced yesterday that it would be conducting a workshop to teach people how to prevent the entry of invasive snails and slugs from Rota to Saipan and Tinian.

The workshop, entitled Slug and Snail Biology and Control Methods, will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 1, from 9am to 12pm, at the Department of Lands and Natural Resources conference room in Lower Base.

According to NMC-CREES agricultural consultant Isidoro T. Cabrera, precautionary measures must be taken to prevent slugs from entering Saipan and Tinian.

“Snails eat crops and newly generated crops, and slugs cause a lot of damage not only to agricultural crops but natural vegetation as well,” he said. “It’s going to cause more problems [on Saipan if they manage to gain entry], and we have enough problems with insects.”

Cabrera said the workshop will focus on educating farmers and Quarantine personnel but it is also open to the public.

“Prevention and control will be presented, as well as information about their life cycle, biology of slugs, habitat,” he said. “If we don’t know the life cycle, then sometimes it’s hard to get rid of them. So we’re going to know how many eggs they lay, life span, and more.”

Heading the workshop is tropical horticulturist Mark J. Bonin of the Rota NMC-CREES.

Earlier, Bonin disclosed that millions of slugs, including a harmful species from the Caribbean called the Cuban slug, have invaded and grown to epidemic proportions on Rota.

The Cuban slug, scientifically known as Vernicella cubenis, is a two-striped slug that came from Hawaii and Guam. The species is believed to have reached Hawaii through importation of ornamental plants about 15 years ago.

In the Pacific region, there are 4,000 indigenous species of slugs and snails and 100 to 200 alien species.

Most of them are hermaphrodites—each has both male and female reproductive organs—and they multiply by exchanging bundles of sperm.

Eggs are usually laid in crevices in the soil or under rocks, while some species may give birth to live young. Eggs hatch within several weeks. It takes one to two years for slugs to reach maturity.

Slugs normally hide under logs and rocks, in leaf litter or under the bark of trees. Most of them feed on fungi, dead animal, and plant matter—leaves, stems, bulbs, algae.