A ₹1 bounty on giant African snails

Walkers’ group in Kerala buy the pests from households to eliminate them

An offer to buy the highly invasive African giant snails is not something one comes across very often. But posters, complete with contact numbers, making exactly such an offer are turning heads in the coastal panchayats of Nayarambalam and Njarackal in Kerala.

The rather novel initiative is the brainchild of Sunrise, a combine of morning walkers. Since putting up the posters a week ago, they have been flooded with calls from affected people, as the invasive African snails are crop pests apart from posing health hazards.

“We buy the African snails at ₹1 each. In the one week since we started the initiative, we have bought over 3,500 snails, which were later killed en masse using a saline lotion. In one case, we bought about 600 snails from a single household,” said Avarachan Parakkal, an active member of the group.