Threat of Apple Snails to Georgia's Ecosystem

Question: What threat do invasive apple snails pose to Georgia’s ecosystems and economy?

Answer: Georgia has a viable population of these island snails, but not to the extent of some of the other states. And, we don’t know, has Georgia’s research on population densities been fully vetted yet. We don’t know exactly what the population is in Georgia. We’re a contractor, so we run across them from time to time and know what they look like, and most of the time because they’re ponds that we manage or lakes that we manage, we address the problem on an individual basis with our client. But, as far as public waterways are concerned or waterways that aren’t managed in Georgia that don’t have any kind of monitoring system on it, it has the potential to be a big problem in Georgia. But Georgia’s rice market is relatively insignificant to all those other states that have a need to really have close monitoring of what’s going on with them, because that rice market exists in each one of those states.