§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his latest evaluation of the research into the use of carnivorous snails and slugs to reduce the use of poisons in gastropod control. [22451]
§ Mrs. BrowningMAFF does not fund research into the use of carnivorous slugs and snails to control gastropods since the prevailing scientific view is that they are unlikely to offer any particular advantages as biocontrol agents except in a limited number of very specific control situations. MAFF is aware of work with carnivorous snails in France to control the snail vector of the liver fluke parasite which can be a problem in commercial watercress beds and on the use of carnivorous snails in Belgium for the control of garden slugs. However, other methods of biocontrol such as the use of nematodes, non-toxic chemical repellents and predatory beetles are considered to offer a greater potential for reducing the use314W of "poisons" in a wider range of pest control situations. Work on a number of these is supported by MAFF.
As biocontrol agents, carnivorous slugs and snails have a poor record and considerable care needs to be taken to ensure that non-target species will not be predated, particularly if non-indigenous species of carnivorous snails are to be used. The most notable situation in which a carnivorous snail was used to control a gastropod pest proved not only unsuccessful but highly ecologically damaging to a number of indigenous non-pest snail species. Carnivorous snails from Florida were used in an attempt to control the giant African land snail, which had become a pest on a number of Pacific islands. Unfortunately, the carnivorous snails ignored the giant land snails and found the indigenous snail population more to their taste.