Sydney, Australia: Conservation experts in Australia have launched an emergency breeding program to save the endangered Norfolk Island hairy snail from extinction after monitoring revealed a steady decline in its wild population.
The species is found only in a small public reserve on Norfolk Island, an Australian territory in the South Pacific. The tiny snail has a fine hair-like covering on its shell and adult snails are roughly the size of the nail on a pinky finger, according to a statement released Monday by the Australian Museum.
In August 2026, a team led by the Australian Museum, in partnership with Taronga Conservation Society Australia, collected 30 snails and transported them to Taronga Zoo Sydney to establish a breeding population to be released back on Norfolk Island to bolster the wild population.
Monitoring conducted from August 2025 to May 2026 revealed a steady decline in live snails and an increase in dead shells, indicating increased mortality. The population faces threats including ants, climate change and predation by rodents and feral chickens, experts said.
Taronga Zoo senior keeper Tarryn Williams Clow said the snails had adapted well to their new habitats and had begun producing live young about a month after arriving at the zoo, offering cautious optimism for the conservation effort.
Norfolk Island is a global hotspot for snails, with about 60 unique species. Earlier this year, the program successfully bred and released another critically endangered endemic species, Campbell's keeled glass-snail, back into the wild, according to the museum.
