Occasional cases of the orange-brown mottled vine snail have appeared in Sweden for a long time, only to quickly disappear again. But from around 2015, larger populations have been found in southern Sweden. – Now it is found from Smögen down the coast and it has been found all the way to Stockholm. It is established nowadays, absolutely, says Jonas Roth, consultant at the SLU Artdatabanken and expert on molluscs. The conch originated in southern Europe, but is also well established in the UK. – It is not original there either, but came there with the Romans so it has been there for a very long time, says Jonas Roth. – Apparently it is a bigger problem than the killer snail there. But they don’t have as big a problem with killer snails in England as we have here, but there it is this snail instead, for some reason that is not really known. Popular delicacy Why the spotted grape snail now manages to establish itself in Sweden after many previous attempts is also not clear. – People usually blame it on the fact that it’s warmer, I don’t know if that’s the whole truth. The fact that it is in Malmö and down there does not have to do with heat. There are many transports that get there first, there are transshipment centers and the like there. The spotted vine snail is slightly smaller than its relative, the common vine snail. But the spotted variety grows faster than any other vine snail and is therefore popular to grow for eating. – It is grown commercially above all in Poland. Then you have big farms where you feed them as much as you can so they grow fast. And so you make everything from pickled snails to other products, such as slime creams, says Roth. Spreads easily The fact that they are fast-growing is related to the fact that they have a shorter life cycle and reproduce faster and eat a lot – factors that make it not so attractive to have in your garden, despite the fact that it has a beautiful shell. If there are many of them, they can do a lot of damage. – I don’t know how much damage it has done in Sweden, no one has corrected it. I don’t want to say it’s a problem, but it can be. A few years ago, the mollusk expert visited a commercial garden outside Simrishamn where spotted vine snails had settled and multiplied by the thousands. – There they sat under basically every single pot and every single box. It’s so easy to get them when they hide like that. If you have a pot with holes in the bottom, they like to sit in there, says Roth. – Many snail species that spread easily have the behavior of sitting and resting when it is too hot. If you move the pots, they end up somewhere else. They can accompany a truck to Scandinavia.
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