By Becky Bowers, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Florida is now home to a slime-oozing plant-chowing snail the size of a teacup chihuahua, and Adam Putnam wants to make sure that's temporary.
The giant African land snail can grow up to 8 inches, live nearly a decade, devour indiscriminately, lay 500 eggs at a time and snack on stucco for the calcium to build its shiny brown shell striped with cream.
It's a backyard horror and an agricultural nightmare.
Putnam, the state's agriculture commissioner, says it also carries disease.
The 1,000-snail invasion of a South Florida neighborhood became news in mid September. It's the biggest outbreak reported since the 1960s, when the state spent $1 million over the course of a decade battling three smuggled-in snails of a Miami boy that became 18,000.
Last weekend, CBS News Sunday Morning featured the snails ...