New Zealand Mudsnail Threatens Native Wildlife

The New Zealand Mudsnail has invaded estuaries, lakes, rivers, and streams in California, Washington, Oregon, and many other states.

The tiny Mudsnails crowd out native aquatic insects that provide food for native creek animals, including local endangered species like steelhead, tidewater goby, and the red-legged frog.

The New Zealand Mudsnail has no known predators, and when ingested by fish, they can be excreted alive.

They reproduce by cloning themselves, and it only takes a SINGLE snail to produce an invasion.

Mudsnails spread by attaching to fishing gear, waders, boots soles and laces, nets, buckets, clothing, pets, horses, bikes, and more. They can live on field gear for long periods of time, and then infest new environments when that gear is reused.

Because there is no known way to eradicate Mudsnails once they are introduced into a water body, prevention is key.

A single Mudsnail can result in a colony of more than 40 million in just one year!

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The New Zealand Mudsnail has already been found in creeks in the Santa Monica and Ventura Mountains, but has not yet been found in Santa Barbara County.

If you swim, hike, fish, bike, boat, or monitor water quality in Ventura County, follow these tips to prevent the spread of the New Zealand Mudsnail to Santa Barbara:

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Know which streams are infested.  
If visiting infested areas, keep different sets of field gear for different bodies of water.
Scrub and rinse all gear before leaving a site.
Inspect gear for sand, mud, and plant materials before taking it to a new site.
Select an additional treatment method like freezing, soaking in hot water, drying, or chemical treatment if Mudsnails are present or suspected to be present.

For more information and maps of infested areas, visit http://www.dfg.ca.gov/invasives/mudsnail/.

“Hard-to-kill snails infest Santa Monica Mountain watersheds” LA Times Article, March 30, 2010.