Examiner.com article on Detroit Zoo snails

The Detroit Zoo sent more than 100 Partula snails like this one at the London Zoo back to Tahiti.
Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

Detroit Zoo ships snails to Tahiti to repopulate endangered species

In a statement released Tuesday, May 26, the Detroit Zoo announced that it had sent one-hundred land snails to Tahiti to repopulate their native habitat.  The snails belong to a species,  Partula nodosa, that had been extinct in the wild for more than twenty years. 

The announcement was more than twenty-five years in the making.  In 1989, the Detroit Zoo received specimens of P. nodosa as part of a collaborative effort with other zoos to save the species from extinction.  By the time the snail was declared extinct in the wild in 1994, all the P. nodosa on the planet resided at the Detroit Zoo.

“Our efforts and successful breeding of the snails resulted in the rescue and recovery of the species,” said Scott Carter, Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) chief life sciences officer in a statement.  “Currently there are six thousand individuals living in North American zoos, all descendants from the Detroit Zoo’s original small group.”

There's more at the link, including a video.  Unfortunately, it's not this one from WXYZ: Detroit Zoo saves Tahitian Land snails.

Detroit Zoo saves Tahitian Land snails from extinction.

Just the same, I'm happy to have found both a video and a photograph from the Examiner.com library to illustrate the article.  I was worried I wouldn't find either, so I looked for them first.  As the article itself, it's a science story involving snails and Detroit.  Therefore, I had to write it.