I’ve been thinking about snails.

Snails are somewhat hard to find where I used to live in Ouray, Colorado. There are a roughly forty species of snail native to Colorado. I would hike the Perimeter Trail surrounding Ouray and find stark white shells of snails long-since dead among the leaf litter beside the trail. Once when collecting material from the forest floor for a terrarium made out of a 1 gallon tank once used for a failed aquarium, I had not realized that what I assumed to be an abandoned snail shell that I picked up off the ground was in fact a live snail. After roughly four hours I found upon peering back into the terrarium a live snail had awoken and was beginning to take in its new surroundings in the terrarium. I felt a little bad about essentially stealing this snail and removing it from its home. This was four years ago so I cannot entirely remember what became of this snail. I want to say that I removed it and placed it outside but I cannot be entirely sure. I think I let it live in my terrarium for at least a couple days.

Now I live in Eugene, Oregon where all the more moist creatures I was never familiar with when growing up in drought stricken western Colorado and in the Mojave Desert of Las Vegas are plentiful. During certain times of the year I hear frogs raising a cacophony of ribbits and croaks into the night from locales unknown to me. I have found several large slugs lumbering about the forest floor on hikes with my father. This is to say that the creatures that seemingly require a significant amount of water present in the environment are quite easy to come across here in Oregon.

I live in a brand new apartment complex on the edge of the city, so the forces of nature are still foreign and hard to find on the nearly pristine concrete pathways and young trees yet to grow into hulking towering beasts. This is the first spring/summer living at this apartment complex that I have noticed snails out and about. One morning while taking my dog out for a morning walk I noticed 3 snails suctioned in place to the sidewalk, so I removed them and placed them in a system of reeds and used as places for rainwater to collect in. Now every day when I take my dog out I am surveying the sidewalk and ground for snails, not just out of curiosity but out of concern for their safety. I have found a handful of dead snails that have been clearly stepped on and squished, either out of malice or on accident. I love snails, and I hate seeing dead ones, so whenever I find a snail that is on the sidewalk, on the edge of the sidewalk or in a place I can tell it may find its way onto the sidewalk I try to gently remove them and place them in the numerous ditches of reeds I think they would be safer in.

They seem to be attracted to places of consistent moisture, such as areas where sprinklers pop out of and little ditches and divots in the ground where water collects. A lot of these places are directly next to the sidewalk.

It annoys me to see these squished snails because it means that not many people are paying attention to the ground beneath them. It is the pure ignorance that is what pains me. I don’t think this is that huge of a deal, its just the fact that all it would take is to see the snail is on the ground and then walk around it is not that difficult of a task to accomplish. I know that there are many more snails in the forest, but it is cool to come across a little piece of nature in your day to day life.