Every once in a while, nature provides a miracle, as it did in Australia in 2020, when the Campbell's keeled glass-snail was spotted on Norfolk Island. These snails were presumed extinct, according to Mongabay.
"Officially, Campbell's keeled glass-snail is still listed as extinct on the IUCN Red List, based on a 1996 assessment. In Australia, it's considered critically endangered," per Mongabay.
After the Australian Museum's Isabel Hyman, colleagues, and a local resident confirmed the snail's population in Norfolk Island National Park, they got to work to ensure the snail's survival.
A snail breeding program started in 2021 in collaboration between the Australian Museum, Norfolk Island National Park, Sydney's Taronga Zoo, and Western Sydney University. It took place at the Taronga Zoo.
It was a challenge due to the lack of knowledge about the snail's diet and history.
Hyman told Mongabay it took "a lot of careful, painstaking work, and recordkeeping from the husbandry team."
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There are now more than 800 snails at the zoo, and 600 were relocated to Norfolk Island in June. A month later, they released 340 more with ID tags and relocated them to where the snails were found before. More will be released in June.
They did not release the zoo-bred ones to the wild population. To ensure their survival, they thought it was better to create a second population. Hyman believes progress is promising because they are also seeing baby snails in the wild.
Hyman told Mongabay: "We realize that it is still early days and that the population needs more time to become fully established."
Luckily, some animals like the Campbell's keeled glass-snail are resilient and can bounce back, just as was the case with the elephant seal, which was hunted for oil from its blubber in the 1800s. The marine creatures were thought to be extinct, but there are now about 175,000 of them.
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Definitely 👍 Sometimes animals need help bouncing back. For example, the Przewalski's horse was driven to extinction in the 1960s. However, with work that started in the 1970s, there are now about 1,000 of them living across China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Scientists used gene mapping of the horses living in captivity.
The horse's risk status was even downgraded twice by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
It's work like this that helps keep biodiversity flourishing. According to The Royal Society, biodiversity is essential for everything, including you. A healthy ecosystem is essential for the air you breathe and the food you eat.
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