About 50 large snails, of different ages and up to 15 cm (six inches) in shell diameter, were caught Sunday night in the belongings of a Thai worker who entered Israel at Ben Gurion International Airport. The man came to Israel as part of a group of workers from Thailand.
An inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture's Plant Protection and Inspection Services (PPIS) checked the passengers' luggage and found the 50 live snails in the course of a scan. The owner of the snails said that they were intended for raising and eating.
The snails were collected and taken to the PPIS for exact identification and quarantine. The Thai work immigrant was detained for questioning.
While snails appear harmless and fascinate children, plant protection services worldwide wage a determined war against allowing them into their territories. The giant African snail (Achatina fulica) is especially notorious. It can destroy large areas of vegetation very quickly and worse, can transfer diseases to humans. One such disease is meningitis, which is caused by parasitic worms that grow atop the snail.
The giant African worm does not exist in Israel and the PPIS devotes much effort into keeping the situation that way. It is listed as one of the top 100 most dangerous invading species by the United Nations.
Environmentalists list invading species as the second biggest threat to diversity of species, after global warming. While attempts to prevent the African snail from invading Israel have thus far been successful, another invader – the small “fire ant” with the painful sting – has succeeded in crossing into the Holy Land.