Excerpt from businessmole.com
On Tuesday 18 November, 2025, the team behind a decades-long zoo project celebrated a major milestone in the recovery of ‘extinct’ snails. The team has successfully reintroduced thousands of ‘glow-in-the-dark’ snails to French Polynesia as part of a global conservation program to save the species from extinction.
This annual reintroduction of zoo-bred Extinct in the Wild and Critically Endangered Partula snails marked the largest release of these finger-nail sized snails to date, with over 7,000 snails being returned to four islands. Before their release, each snail was marked with a small dab of white UV reflective paint, which glows blue under UV light. This marking method helps the team locate and monitor the snails, as they are most active at night.