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LSU scientists working to lessen impact of invasive apple snails on crawfish farms
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BATON ROUGE — The apple snail, one of the most invasive species in the Gulf region, is a major nuisance for crawfish farmers, and with crawfish season only a few months away, LSU scientists are working to lessen their impact.
"They're omnivores, so they eat pretty much anything," LSU Assistant Professor of Biology Sydney Moyo said. "One thing about them is that their population is really big. They can pretty much outcompete the crawfish. They can eat a whole lot more than the crawfish."
The apple snail was brought to the United States from South America through fish trades, according to the LSU AgCenter.
"They were sold as aquarium fish and then they would crawl out of people's tanks and lay eggs," LSU AgCenter Associate Professor of Entomology Blake Wilson said.
One of the easiest ways to know apple snails are around is by their bright pink egg clusters. Wilson said that if the eggs are white, it means they are close to hatching.
"They're laid above the water surface, and they're highly visible. I always advise people not to touch those eggs with their hands. They contain a mild neurotoxin that can irritate your skin or particularly irritate your eyes and your mouth," Wilson said.
The danger of the apple snail lies in its ability to, firstly, eat almost anything in its path, and secondly, to reproduce at incredibly high rates.
"They have a really high reproductive capacity. During the summer, one female can lay an egg mass that has about 1,000 eggs about every week to 10 days," Wilson said.
LSU researchers are doing tests to determine whether apple snails and crawfish search for the same foods.
"Take some tissue from the crawfish, and we can take some tissue from the snails themselves, and we can actually see how much they're competing," Moyo said.
AgCenter scientists are also considering using chemicals to control apple snail populations. The difficulty in that method is finding substances that affect the snails, but not the crawfish.
"One of the things that we're trying to figure out is we're trying to do some habitat, looking at the habitats that they live in and trying to see where there are ways to change the habitats to make sure that the environments are better for the crawfish and not the snails," Moyo said.
In the meantime, the professors said that anyone can help keep apple snails in check when spotted.
"If you find the eggs, you can knock them down with a stick into the water, and that will prevent them from hatching," Wilson said.
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