Race on to find giant meat-eating kauri snail in Bay of Islands

Help is needed to find a giant meat-eating snail before it's too late.

Conservation group Bay Bush Action, which was last weekend named the second best volunteer group in the country, is looking for a carnivorous kauri snail found only in Northland and known as a pupurangi.

According to the Department of Conservation, the Paryphanta busbyi shell can grow up to 79mm in diameter.

Trustee Brad Windust, of Paihia, said the group had been intensively trapping possums, stoats, cats and rats in 450ha of Opua State Forest for the past six years, but in all that time volunteers had only found one dead pupurangi.

"We're really worried we might have been just a few years too late to save them and they have gone from this beautiful forest. Possums have been recorded eating up to 30 pupurangi per night. They rip them open like a can opener and suck out the fleshy foot."

Possums had also been recorded eating wood pigeon chicks, native bats and bird's eggs.
And it wasn't just possums, Mr Windust said - pigs, rats and hedgehogs also sniffed out and chomped their way through native snails night after night.

In a bid to find out whether any pupurangi remain, Bay Bush Action was calling on interested members of the public to help search the forest, giving the trust more eyes on the ground.

"We really hope we find somewhere in Opua State Forest where they are still hanging on, so we can make sure there is intensive pest control there for them and stop yet another local extinction from taking place," Mr Windust said.

Pupurangi played an important role in our forest. Unlike most other snails they were meat eaters, hunting the giant native worms called toke and sucking them up like spaghetti.

■ Email baybushaction@gmail.com if you can help in the search.