CATDOLL : CATDOLL: There used to be a lot of golden apple snails in the countryside. Why are they gone now?

The golden apple snails used to be rampant in rural areas. Why are they gone now? The number of golden apple snails has indeed decreased a lot.

I was born in the 1990s in the countryside. I remember that when I was a child, every family would go to the pond to pick up some and take them home to keep in buckets as pets. There were not many at that time, and it was a new species, so pesticides had no effect on it. So after several years of reproduction, a large number of golden apple snails appeared in the farmland, which would eat crops. At this time, farmers began to think about how to eliminate golden apple snails. A large number of pesticides that kill golden apple snails appeared on the market, and farmers would pick them up in the fields by hand, and then kill them with something. In this way, we will find that the golden apple snails are now gradually decreasing. Pesticides are the main reason. No creature can escape the killing of pesticides. In addition, the number of farmlands has decreased in recent years, the rainfall has also decreased, and the golden apple snails cannot face the problem of drought. Natural reasons plus human reasons have caused the golden apple snails to gradually decrease in winter and are rarely seen.

The first time I saw golden apple snails was in Guangzhou. As a northerner, I have seen field snails the most and rarely heard of golden apple snails. So, I was surprised at that time that there were such big field snails. Later, a friend introduced it to me and I learned that it was another kind of snail different from field snails. At that time, there would be many red eggs in the rice fields and on the ridges in spring, which was extremely detrimental to the growth of rice. However, the number of golden apple snails has gradually decreased in recent years. What is the reason?

The golden apple snail was introduced to China in the 1970s and 1980s. It was introduced to my country to supplement the sales market of field snails because of its strong adaptability to the environment, rapid reproduction, and the fact that a single snail is much larger than a field snail. After its introduction, people found that the golden apple snail tasted very bad, the meat was relatively hard, and the golden apple snail was not restricted by water areas, so it was easy for it to cross different fish ponds and spread to farmland, causing a disaster. In addition, the golden apple snail is the host of the adult Guangzhou roundworm. Eating raw or incompletely heated golden apple snails will cause infection, causing headaches, facial stiffness, and in severe cases, meningitis. The adult golden apple snail has a miscellaneous diet and harms aquatic plants such as rice and lotus roots. It can cause notches on lotus root leaves and damage rice tillers. In severe cases, it can cause a reduction in rice production of more than 20%.

The author's statement that the golden apple snails are now gone is not accurate, it is just that the number has decreased. There are many reasons for the decrease in the number of golden apple snails, mainly concentrated in the following aspects:

First, artificial control has led to a decrease in the number of golden apple snails. Since the golden apple snail harms crops and reproduces quickly, people have adopted biological and chemical control methods to reduce the harm of golden apple snails. Biological control generally involves releasing ducks in paddy fields to reduce the number of golden apple snails by catching them instead of eating them; chemical control generally involves using chemical drugs to kill golden apple snails and their eggs. However, this method will leave drug residues, pollute water sources, and increase agricultural residues in the soil. In addition, people can also change the soil environment through artificial capture, deep plowing of the soil, and drying of fields in winter to prevent golden apple snails from laying eggs, thereby killing the golden apple snails and their eggs at the source to reduce harm.

Second, changes in the biological environment have led to a decrease in the number of golden apple snails. In recent years, the use of pesticides and fertilizers has continued to increase, and agricultural residues have gradually accumulated in the soil and water sources, resulting in an unsuitable environment, which has restricted the growth of golden apple snails and reduced their number to a certain extent.

Third, the increase in the number of natural enemies of the golden apple snail has led to a decrease in its number. The natural enemies of the golden apple snails were not clear at the place where they were introduced. After so many years of breeding and growth, some natural enemies, such as ducks, will feed on the golden apple snails, and capture them, resulting in a decrease in their number.

In addition to harming crops, the golden apple snail can also be harmful to the human body if it is not handled properly. Therefore, farmers are advised not to eat golden apple snails casually to avoid harm to their bodies.

I don't know if you still remember the golden apple snail. In the past, it loved to appear in farmland. It was also very destructive. It not only ate the newly grown rice, but also cut the farmers working in the fields. And its reproductive capacity is very strong. If it is not picked out manually in advance, the rice fields may really be ruined.

It can be said that farmers used to pick up golden apple snails manually, and even raised ducks for this purpose. It is very good to feed ducks with golden apple snails. However, the golden apple snails that used to be rampant are rarely seen now. Why is that?

In the opinion of the old farmer, there are mainly the following reasons leading to the decreasing number of golden apple snails. I wonder what you think.

1. High water quality requirements, and water pollution is serious nowadays

The golden apple snail has high requirements for water quality. In the past, rice fields were all farmyard manure, and the living conditions were relatively good, so they could reproduce in large numbers. However, nowadays, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used directly, which not only pollutes the water quality, but also the soil. Naturally, the golden apple snail cannot survive.

2. There are more and more natural enemies, not only animals but also humans eat them.

Secondly, there are more and more natural enemies. In the past, farmers reclaimed wasteland everywhere and drove away all the natural enemies of the golden apple snail. Now there are more and more plants in rural areas. Not only animals are the natural enemies of the golden apple snail, but city dwellers also eat the golden apple snails directly, which has also aggravated the survival of the golden apple snail. Now many people can only artificially breed golden apple snails.

3. If farmers stop farming, there will be less natural resources.

Of course the most important thing is that farmers don’t farm anymore. In the past, every household in the rural area farmed, so there was a natural environment for survival. Now, farmers either don’t farm or plant fruit trees, so there is naturally no water for survival, so there are fewer and fewer golden apple snails.

In short, the decreasing number of golden apple snails is related to the changes in their living environment. Rural areas are no longer the same as they were in the past, and the living environment has changed, so naturally golden apple snails are becoming less and less common.

But the situation I saw was completely different from the questioner's. You may have seen it in the dry season when there is a lack of water. Everyone should know that the golden apple snail is an alien species with strong reproductive capacity. It can produce hundreds or thousands of red snail eggs each time. The snail eggs are attached to the grass stems or stones by the water. After a period of time, they will become young snails. The young snails eat the tender stems at the base of the grass. If they enter the rice fields, they will cause devastating pests to the rice. Therefore, in recent years, my country has been catching snails in rice production areas to stabilize production. However, in the southern region with a warmer climate, the golden apple snails reproduce with amazing force. In addition, some abandoned paddy fields and swamps are full of snails, competing with people for food.

There are still many golden apple snails in some southern regions, but the most sensational time has passed. Golden apple snails were once introduced from Argentina as a means of economic expansion. In 1980, Mr. Huang, an overseas Chinese in Argentina, brought golden apple snails to Taiwan and began to breed them. He was attracted by the advantages of golden apple snails, such as fast reproduction, high meat production, and easy breeding and management. At that time, eating snail meat was the most popular thing on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Fujian. As a result, golden apple snails got out of control and spread like a disaster. They ate any green plants, especially causing devastating damage to rice fields.

Except for some southern regions that do not pay much attention to it, there are several main reasons why the golden apple snails are less abundant.

① Pesticides

The golden apple snail is no longer popular, and the country has banned its breeding and sale. The rice planted by many farmers has been severely damaged by the golden apple snail, and the rice is almost completely destroyed. There is no other choice but to start spraying pesticides on a large scale.

Farming is much easier now than it was more than 10 years ago. More than 10 years ago, farming required pulling out large weeds, going to the fields over and over again. Now it only requires a few applications of pesticides, and there are basically no weeds on the ground, let alone these snails.

②Agriculture and forestry

Now many places have implemented forest economy, and some rice fields raise crayfish, crabs, and ducks. These animals love to eat golden apple snails, especially ducks, which are very good at eating golden apple snails. They eat more than ten kilograms of golden apple snails a day. The eggs of golden apple snails are especially delicious for ducks that lay eggs, because golden apple snails are very rich in protein.

③ Illegal purchases by illegal traders lead to large-scale arrests

Golden apple snails are very similar to field snails, and they are larger. One golden apple snail can hold the weight of three or four field snails. Stir-fried crayfish is very popular now, but stir-fried field snails were just as popular as crayfish. Many customers don't like to eat field snails because they are expensive and have little meat. Merchants used golden apple snails to impersonate field snails, which also led to a large-scale parasite infection incident.

In 2006, a very popular and high-end Sichuan restaurant in Beijing launched a dish of cold-mixed snail meat, which received unanimous praise. At that time, it was not like now, when everyone is rushing to eat internet-famous dishes. That was an era when customers were won by taste.

Normally, snail meat must be boiled in boiling water for 20 minutes and then cooled before being used as an ingredient. However, if the golden apple snail is boiled for too long, the meat will become hard, like beef tendon, so the chef only boiled it for 5 minutes to save trouble.

As a result, more than 160 people ate such dishes and were infected with the parasite "Guangzhou roundworm" in the golden apple snail. The treatment was accompanied by a fine, and the restaurant paid more than 23 million yuan in compensation. In that era, 23 million yuan was really valuable. In 2006, my classmate's house in the 3rd ring of Beijing cost less than 1 million yuan. The current price~

Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a parasite found in Guangzhou. The adult parasite lives in the lungs of mice, and the larvae live in golden apple snails. When a person is infected, the parasite crawls on the human body, causing a splitting headache and skin pain. The body cannot be touched, as it hurts all over.

▲ (Pink is the eggs laid by the golden apple snail)

A female golden apple snail can lay less than 400,000 eggs in a year. Yes, you read that right, this reproduction rate is simply terrifying, so some rice fields use snail-killing granules, snail-killing granules and other chemical drugs to poison the golden apple snails. This is the main reason why the number of golden apple snails has decreased.

In fact, the golden apple snails that once plagued rural areas still exist in large numbers in Guangxi. Farmland, ditches, rivers, ponds, lakes and other places with water are still the habitats of the golden apple snails for generations.

In the early 1980s, golden apple snails were introduced to Guangdong as an economic aquaculture product. At one time, the strong adaptability and reproduction speed of golden apple snails, their large size and rich meat made people who smelled business opportunities very happy, and the scale and scope of aquaculture expanded rapidly and spread.

Soon, however, people began to dislike the golden apple snail, and the economic breeding of golden apple snails was abandoned. However, after the abandoned golden apple snails were released into the wild, they became uncontrollable and became a terrible alien invasive species, multiplying and spreading wildly, invading every field and biting every rice crop. Since then, the harm of golden apple snails to agriculture has gradually become apparent.

I remember a group of farmers in the village gathered together to take a break from farming. They talked about the damage and losses caused to their rice fields by golden apple snails, and also talked about the situation of golden apple snails entering the village.

It is said that in the 1980s, a young man from the village who had been traveling for a long time brought back a few golden apple snails and kept them in a large porcelain bowl at home, like treasures. As a result, his golden apple snails grew rapidly and were raised in his own paddy fields. But soon, the young man stopped raising the golden apple snails that he had treated as treasures and dumped them into the ditch without thinking.

The young man brought the snails back to the village, leaving behind a field of snails, and then left. These snails grew rapidly in the ditches and paddy fields. When people found that the snails were endless in the village, the rice seedlings in the fields were also eaten bare. From then on, when the villagers planted their crops, they were trapped in a situation where they had to kill the snails every year, but they could not kill them all.

Nowadays, it seems that there are fewer golden apple snails in rural areas. In fact, it is because of the change in crops grown by farmers that the harm of golden apple snails to agriculture is not so obvious.

In Guangxi, farmers have been converting rice fields into dry land for citrus cultivation in recent years. In the past, large-scale rice cultivation was the main focus, and the golden apple snails specialized in eating rice seedlings and rice stalks, which had a particularly serious impact on rice production. Today, citrus cultivation is mainly based on dry land, which has changed the living environment of the golden apple snails.

Of course, this is only a partial reduction, and the golden apple snail is far from being extinct in rural areas. In addition to the conversion of rice fields into fruit fields, rural ditches, ponds, rivers, wastelands, puddles, etc. are still the breeding grounds for golden apple snails.

Please note that golden apple snails cannot be eaten casually to avoid harm to your health.

The golden apple snail was introduced to Guangdong in 1981 as an economic breeding species because of its large size, abundant meat, fast reproduction and strong adaptability. However, due to various factors, the scale of breeding continued to expand, resulting in over-breeding. Also, because the meat tasted poor and the market was unable to open up, a large number of breeders suffered, resulting in a large number of golden apple snails being released into the wild.

Due to the lack of natural enemies, its strong reproductive ability and fast adaptability were rapidly amplified and spread extremely quickly. It later became the main alien species that harms rice fields and waters in the surrounding areas of Guangdong and Guangxi. It specializes in eating the roots and stems of rice seedlings, causing losses to agriculture.

The harm of golden apple snails is not only that they disrupt the balance of natural waters, but the process of eating them is also very risky. If you accidentally eat golden apple snails that are not fully cooked or heated, you are likely to ingest parasites such as Guangzhou roundworms, which is extremely harmful to human health.

Guangzhou roundworm, this parasite lives in the human cerebrospinal fluid and can cause severe headaches, nausea, vomiting, low to moderate fever and neck stiffness, which can be life-threatening in severe cases.

How to distinguish between golden apple snails and field snails? Golden apple snails are large in size and have a yellowish body. The spiral at the butt is short and flat.

In fact, it is not just the golden apple snail. Other snails such as field snails and river snails also have many parasites. It’s just that the harm they cause is not as serious as that of the golden apple snail and is easily ignored by people. So, no matter what kind of snail it is, first of all, you must ensure that it is fully heated and try to only eat the snail’s head.

But as the questioner said, they are gone now. This should be a regional phenomenon. For example, in the farmer’s hometown in Guangxi, there used to be a large number of golden apple snails in the rice fields, but there are none today because of the local water shortage. It is difficult to grow two seasons of rice, and farmers have low incomes, so they have switched to citrus crops. There is no water in the fields, so where do the golden apple snails come from?

But in fact, there are still a large number of golden apple snails in natural waters in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Fujian, Yunnan and other southern China regions. We cannot relax our prevention and control of golden apple snails. In order to reduce the harm of golden apple snails to rice, what is the best thing for farmers to do?

1. It is recommended to raise ducks. Raising ducks in rice fields is of good quality, grows fast, and sells for a high price. The most important thing is that ducks can eat young golden apple snails. Usually half a month after rice transplanting, when the rice roots are relatively stable, put the ducks in the morning and evening to find snails to eat.

2. Artificial capture: For overwintering golden apple snails, low-lying areas and ditches near rice fields should be cleaned up in a timely manner to destroy the overwintering environment of the golden apple snails.

3. Trapping. After the rice fields are flooded, you can insert bamboo strips about 50 cm long into the fields. The purpose of this is to allow the golden apple snails to crawl up and lay eggs. The red eggs can then be destroyed artificially, which can greatly reduce the damage done by the golden apple snails to rice.

The above three points are relatively easy to achieve and have little side effects. They are recommended for everyone to use. As for the use of medication, it needs to be used under the guidance of an agricultural technician. If used incorrectly, it can cause great harm to the water area.

Summary: 1. Do not eat golden apple snails. 2. All snails should be heated for a sufficient period of time. 3. The task of preventing and controlling golden apple snails is still difficult in some areas.

The golden apple snail is a well-known invasive animal. One female snail can produce more than 325,000 young snails in two generations in one year. The crazy proliferation is terrifying. It is really fertile. After the golden apple snail was introduced to Guangdong in 1981, it became a disaster in southern provinces in 1984 due to overbreeding. Because this guy has a strong reproductive capacity and an incredible adaptability, pesticide killing is not only costly and inefficient, but also fails to kill them, and instead pollutes the fields.

Chinese chefs want to use the same method that Chinese foodies use to deal with crayfish to deal with golden apple snails. But they never expected that golden apple snails are tough. Spicy crayfish is a delicacy, but spicy golden apple snails are not popular. Golden apple snails are not only tough and taste bad, but also contain parasites! Two people in Beijing were diagnosed with "Guangzhou Angiostrongylus disease" after eating two "delicious" dishes, "spicy golden apple snails" and "cold-mixed snail meat". Experts say that each golden apple snail has 3,000 to 6,000 Guangzhou Angiostrongylus nematodes in its body, which is really scary!

However, the meat of golden apple snail is rich in nutrition, with high protein ratio, mineral and vitamin content, and is a high-quality aquatic product feed. Biological control can not only effectively control the proliferation of golden apple snails, but also generate high economic benefits, killing two birds with one stone. The most commonly used method now is to raise ducks to eat snails, which has good results, and the young snails are also a delicacy loved by economic fish such as turtles, black fish, and tilapia.

As a rural person, when I see this title, what I personally want to say is that the golden apple snails are not gone, but there are fewer of them. And they are only fewer in farmlands. There are still many in the wild.

Everyone knows that the Golden Apple Snail is an alien species, native to the Amazon River basin in South America. It is said that it was first introduced to Taiwan in the 1980s and then introduced to Guangdong Province. Because the Golden Apple Snail is large in size, an adult Golden Apple Snail can weigh up to about 200 grams, grows quickly and is easy to feed, the Golden Apple Snail is regarded as a new way to get rich in rural areas and introduced to various places, hoping to replace the field snails and snails on the table.

The native field snails in my country have high requirements for water quality and grow slowly. A female field snail can only produce about 100 young snails a year, while the golden apple snail can produce more than 300,000 young snails a year as long as the environment is suitable! ! ! If there is a golden apple snail in the rice field of a village, it is estimated that within 2-3 years, the paddy fields of the whole village will suffer. The golden apple snail is not picky about food. Aquatic plants, small insects in the water, fish and shrimp are all its dishes. It can be said that it eats everything it can eat. In 2003, it was listed as an alien species "blacklist" by my country's Environmental Protection Bureau.

After the Golden Apple Snail was introduced into China, it became rampant due to the lack of corresponding evaluation. The Golden Apple Snail has a very hard meat and is not as delicious as the field snail. Also, since there are baby snails at almost any stage of the Golden Apple Snail, the taste is very poor, so it is not very popular on the dining table.

The most important thing is that golden apple snails can infect Angiostrongylus cantonensis. Because many restaurants do not do a good job of hygiene, customers often get infected by eating uncooked golden apple snails. Cases of infection caused by eating golden apple snails can be seen almost every year. Some unscrupulous restaurants call golden apple snails field snails, misleading consumers and often bringing great risks.

Because the golden apple snails reproduce too quickly, they are harmful to crops and are not popular in the market. A war between humans and snails has begun. Many places must spray snail-killing pesticides before planting rice. However, the golden apple snails are very tenacious and cannot be killed completely, which has caused great losses to local aquatic resources. In order to fight and resist snails, people have shown their magical powers. Some catch them and feed them to ducks and fish, and some catch them and bury them on the spot, etc. However, they cannot be killed completely and can only be controlled locally. Since no one is in charge in the wild, the situation is even more grim. The war between humans and snails continues.

As a 90s-born rural person in the south, I have found that this problem has become increasingly rare in recent years. Take my hometown for example. Not only the golden apple snail, but also some other small animals that I used to see when I was a child have become very rare. Why? I think there are two reasons.

1: In recent years, the number of crops has decreased significantly. When I was a child, almost every family planted rice, and pest and weed control were basically done manually. There was no need to use a large amount of pesticides, and they could basically only be killed manually. Gradually, various pesticides appeared, and not only the snails, but also some other frogs, snakes and other animals have gradually decreased.

2. Changes in crops. In the past, rice cultivation required a lot of water, so the spread of Fountain Snails was quite severe. Later, the amount of rice in rural areas gradually decreased. Take our village for example. More than 95% of our village does not grow rice. All the fields have been changed to bananas. Bananas do not require much water and are not soaked in water. Moreover, because bananas grow large, a large amount of pesticides need to be sprayed on them every time they are used to kill insects. The large-scale use of such pesticides is basically very rare.