Can This Snail Save the Endangered Cross River Gorilla?

Photo By: Wildlife Conservation Society

How can a lowly snail save the majestic gorilla? If people living near Nigeria's Cross River National Park make money by farming African giant snails as an alternative animal protein, and stop poaching Cross River gorillas.

At least, that's the innovative theory being proposed by The Wildlife Conservation Society and funded by the Great Apes Program of the Arcus Foundation. (With additional funding from the U.S. government, among others, WCS plans to extend the snail-farming project to other Cross River gorilla sites in Nigeria this year, but President Obama has proposed cuts to the Fish and Wildlife Service budget that covers programs of this kind.) The program is underway with eight former gorilla hunters who are now farming snails, which are a local delicacy (as is gorilla and other "bush meat"). The cost and effort are low relative to the $70 that a gorilla carcass fetches; snail farming costs $87 per year, but provides $413 in annual profit (after expenses), according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"People living near Cross River gorillas have trouble finding alternative sources of income and food and that’s why they poach," said James Deutsch, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Africa program. "We are working with them to test many livelihood alternatives, but perhaps the most promising, not to mention novel, is snail farming."

Cross River gorillas were thought to be extinct until new colonies were discovered in the 1980s. Still, with fewer than 300 individuals alive, they are the most endangered of the African apes.

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