Short Wave - Saving The Hawaiian Tree Snails

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

More than a million species are at risk of extinction, many within decades, because of human actions. Among them? The kāhuli, Hawaii's native tree snails that are some of the most endangered animals on the planet. At one point, there used to be about 750 species of snails in Hawaii — almost all of them found nowhere else. Now, they are rapidly disappearing. NPR climate reporters Lauren Sommer and Ryan Kellman join host Emily Kwong to tell the story of the small team caring for the last of some of these snail species — and their fight against extinction. Read more of Lauren and Ryan's reporting.Curious about other biodiversity news? Email us at [e-mail] and we might cover your topic on a future episode! See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

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All right, thanks for listening. Here's Shortwave. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey everyone, Emily Kwong here. So outside of Honolulu, Hawaii, up in the hills, there's a trailer home that holds some of the rarest animals on the planet, some of the last in the world. And I have Lauren Summer and Ryan Kelman of NPR's Climate Desk here because you two went there to see them. We did. And they're kind of amazing.

Yeah, they're pretty special, and I am very excited to talk about them. Okay, well, what are they? Well, Emily, they're snails. These are not just any snails, okay? Trust us. All right. They're Cahuli, Hawaii's native tree snails. And wildlife biologist David Sisko showed them to us.

He's with Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. So this is a really neat species. So these snails were in these, like, plastic tubs, you know, kind of like you might see in a pet store. And David pulled out a tub and pulled out a leaf inside, which contained a tiny snail. And this snail is basically the size of your fingernail. Yeah, and its shell was really striking. It was kind of iridescent with, like, these golds and greens. One of the most beautiful.

They look really highly lacquered. Yeah, they're kind of jewel-like. Yeah, our tree snails are known as the jewels of the forest locally. Oh my gosh, I'm looking at these pictures that you took Ryan. They're so little. These are tiny, tiny snails. Yeah, they're super cute. So why are these trees snails so important to him?

Okay, so almost all of these snails are found only in Hawaii. And actually, historically, there used to be about 750 species of Hawaiian snails, and almost all of them were found nowhere else in the world. And they were once so common that David described them as covering the trees like Christmas tree ornaments. But now, for a number of reasons, mostly human-related, they are rapidly disappearing. Yeah, half of all those species are extinct now. And many others are close. And they're actually 40 snail species in David's trailer.

Many of those are extinct in the wild, which means that trailer is the only place they exist. Most people, when they think endangered species going extinct, they think of pandas and tigers and elephants. But, I mean, imagine having 40 different panda species that were all as rare as pandas are. Like, that's what this facility is. So is he trying to safeguard them in captivity, like basically to keep them from going extinct? Yeah, that's exactly it. And of course, you know, it takes a huge amount of care because the stakes are so high. Yeah, and this is what it's come to for many endangered species.

We've made it so the only place they can really exist is in human care. And it's a long road ahead, you know, for the humans and for the species they're protecting to try to bring them back. So today on the show, what it's like to have the fate of all these species in your hands and what it means for the larger battle to save the world's biodiversity. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Okay, so Lauren and Ryan, you went to see some very rare, very cute snails. One looked like a jewel. What did some of the others look like? They're so cool looking.

And we were lucky enough to see a few of them. So this is Ackinsonnel Fulgens. This one's a pale yellow color with a big swirling stripe. They mostly all have pointy shells, right? Not round ones like you might picture on a garden snail. Okay. And some of the others were kind of orange, and some of them were actually so stripes,

they kind of looked plaid. It was just like this huge range of colors. I was much more taken with them than I expected to be. I've never had anyone come in here before and not leave thinking that the snails were really cool and cute. Yeah, sold. So how rare are these particular tree snails?

Extremely rare. And you know that one we were talking about earlier with the stripe? Yeah. David said they knew about one small colony of them left in a group of trees. But then there was this big storm with lots of rain. And the hillside just slumped down where these snails were. And we were only able to find six. a lot. So they were legitimately like almost extinct. Oh, so it was like a rescue effort. Yeah, absolutely. And so,

you know, they had to bring them into the lab just to protect what was left. And he had so many stories like that where his team was like literally racing to bring snails in before they went extinct, you know, almost with no time to spare. This absolutely provides some perspective on just how dire things are for some species. Like it is a matter of maybe what days, weeks. Yeah, exactly. And it's a huge huge contrast to how common they once were. I mean, David said the forests were once just kind of dripping in tree snails. And they don't actually eat the leaves on the trees. They eat the fungus growing on the leaves. So they are actually helping out native trees by cleaning them and then they recycle those nutrients in the ecosystem. So the loss of hundreds of species has a big impact on that

ecosystem. And then, you know, tree snails also have a really important place in native Hawaiian culture. So in Hawaiian tradition, snails sing, they represent voice. And so they were probably one of the most revered invertebrates in the world. The stakes are really high for David and his team, right? And the vibe in their lab in that trailer is kind of like an emergency room. Sorry, we have alarms. There's a small team. They're caring for the snails. They're cleaning the containers and giving the snails native leaves to feed off of.

But they have to be super careful because it's all a contamination risk. And the thing is, if a pathogen gets introduced, it could be the end of a whole species. Yeah, and the snails also depend on a life support system. So they're kept in these environmental chambers. So they're at the right temperature. And then they kind of get misted, which simulates the weather. in a rainforest. So if anything goes wrong with any of that,

David and his team get alerts 24 hours a day, which is why he can never turn off his phone. It is super stressful. All of us feel it. There's a lot of pressure. People might think it's silly to feel that for snails, but if we mess up, it's over for a species. So, yeah, I have sleepless nights.

And, you know, just to add to that, there have been two hurricanes in recent years that were heading toward Honolulu. David checked on his family, of course, but then he and his team evacuated the snails to higher ground and rode out the storm with them. You know, it's a lot of responsibility and a lot of work, but for David, it's just the going rate for being a biologist today. I feel like I have to do this because, like you said, it's now, like it's happening now, like what we, do now will matter to the trajectory of the earth, like, and it's biota. So I kind of feel a lot of pressure to stay and keep it going. Luckily, there are some moments of hope. One species, for example, is going to be put back into the wild soon in a sort of limited capacity granted, but it's going to be out of the lab and back in its natural environment. So that's a positive step. That's a big win.

And we were lucky enough to be actually taken to see that spot up in the mountains of Wahoo where they're going to relocate these snails. It was a rainy hike on a muddy trail, and at first the forest was dense with invasive plants like bamboo. But then we finally got to an area where native trees had been restored. You'll notice there's sounds now, like insect sounds, where there's almost no sound in the... Introduce forest. By introduced forest, he's saying, like, where there's invasive plants like bamboo, you can even hear the difference. Yeah, exactly. There's a big difference between those areas of the forest.

You know, of course, habitat loss is a problem for Hawaii snails, for sure. But it's not the main problem. Oh. And David showed us the culprit. This is a Uglandina, commonly known as a rosy wolf snail. So he's holding a bigger snail. with a pink shell. And this snail is not supposed to be in Hawaii.

The rosy wolf snail was brought here from Florida on purpose to control crop pests. But, you know, it's spread. And it's now an invasive species that's really messing with the ecosystem. Actually, when they come out, they're pretty menacing. They've got, it almost looks like a mustache their appendages on their face. Oh, my gosh, a handlebar mustache snail. It's like a villain in a movie. pretty much because the rosy wolf snail is very good at eating other snails.

It's a predator, and it actually finds its prey by following the slime trails that native snails leave behind. Once they're locked in on a trail from a native snail, they go right up to it. There's no getting away. That is pretty ruthless, like, so there's no escape. Yeah, it's pretty wild, and it's a big reason Hawaii's tree snails have been decimated. So the rosy wolf snail actually hunts them down, you know, hunts them and tracks them and then rips them out of their shells. So, you know, to create a safe space for native snails, David and his team had to build a wall. So we're walking up to one of our fence units here.

So if Rosie wolf snails are like the velociraptors, then this is the Jurassic Park fence, okay? It's about as tall as a person. And it has special snail deterrent. So there's this kind of sharp metal that they won't climb on. And then there's kind of metal overhangs that they get caught under. And there's even an electric wire to give them a shock. Yeah. So this fence encompasses about a quarter acre of forest.

So we even had to climb a ladder to get in. And you can't leave that ladder like leaning against the fence or something because then the Rosie Wolf snail will actually climb up it and get to the native snails. Wow. Determined. Okay. We don't take any chances. we go in and then pull it up, pull up the drawbridge. It's, I laugh, but it's kind of horrible.

It's almost like they're trying to storm the castle. So the idea is to create a zone that's like totally free of wolf snails, right? And inside there's a field team and they're combing through every inch of this area, every blade of grass, to make sure that there's no rosy wolf snails inside. And it's taken them a year and a half to make sure, like, Like this small patch of forests is totally clear. Wow. So now, you know, this winter, one species of Hawaiian snail is going to be released inside.

That's the plan. And it's certainly a big moment. But it's not really about restoring the species to what it once was, you know, and setting it free and letting it go wild. David said it's really just about creating another tiny population that's not in the lab. So, you know, there's some redundancy. There's a backup in case something happens. Right. There's this highly protected quarter acre surrounded by fencing for these snails. But beyond that one group, like, what's the long-term outlook for Hawaii's tree snails? Will they ever really be back in the wild? That's a good question. The team has 13 of these enclosures. And they're planning 10 more. But it takes a ton of resources to scale up, right? To make, to sort of expand on that operation.

So until there's a new way to control Rosie Wolf snails, Hawaii snails are just basically in a holding pattern and will stay in human care. It's just kind of ironic, right? Because human activity, I'm learning from you is really what contributed to their decline, like environmental degradation and introduced species and we're the problem. But we're also the solution. And it just kind of seems like one big circle. Yeah, totally. And as you might imagine, snails don't get the same attention as, you know, your pandas or other more famous species, right? And so therefore, they don't get the same resources to help save them. So it's a really tough place to be in for the people who care about these snails and are working on these issues. I mean, I think it's like caring for a critically ill patient or family member. I would think it would be akin to like that kind of feelings that we go through. But yeah, we probably all need therapy. To be honest. You know, Ryan and I have been doing a lot of reporting on the biodiversity crisis this last year. And everyone we talked to seems to be in this same zone, where it's about living with both hope and grief at the same exact time.

Because we're losing a lot of species on this planet in a very short amount of time. What a lot of those biologists told us, and David, too, is this. that it's an even worse feeling to just let a species go, you know, knowing that extinction is final. So for him and others, it's really about finding the hope at this point, you know, even when it really just doesn't even seem possible. Because giving up, it just simply isn't a choice for them. Lauren Summer and Ryan Kelman, thank you for the story. Thanks for having us, Emily. Yeah, thanks, Emily.

This episode was produced by Jessica Young. It was edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Tyler Jones. Kwayce Lee was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior director and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Shorewave from NPR.