Zoo staff rescue near-extinct snails from remote rock

Zoo conservationists at Chester Zoo have bred 300 near‑extinct tiny snails and returned them to the wild after rescuing a handful from a remote Atlantic isle. Only 21 Madeiran lands snails were found clinging to a stone on Portugal’s Bugio Island, believed to be the last of their kind. Experts from Chester Zoo undertook a perilous climb to retrieve the mollusks, navigating treacherous conditions and steep cliffs to bring them back to their natural habitat, which lies within the Madeira archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. The Madeira authorities had requested the zoo’s help for the snail conservation effort. Teams scrambled from the water up a cliff in darkness to locate fissures in the rock where the snails could be safely placed. Tamas Papp, adjunct squad manager for invertebrates at Chester Zoo, said: “We knew we had 1 changeable to prevention them.” He added: “If we missed this chance, that was it: they were gone.”