Cherchez le slime! Police hunt down snail poachers who are selling hundreds of British 'escargot' to the French

The snails are sold to restaurants in France

The snails are sold to restaurants in France

It beats standing in a freezing river for hours grabbing at salmon, or crawling through the undergrowth at night searching for pheasants and trying to dodge an angry landowner.

And even the most inept poacher would be able to get their hands on the latest valuable delicacy.

Roman snails in Banstead Woods, Surrey, are being ‘wiped out’ by poachers selling them to French restaurants, say conservationists.

Campaigners have called in the police to try to track down the poachers, who they say have hunted thousands of snails and caused the population to fall by 70 per cent over the past two years.

The snails, also known as Burgundy snails, are a delicacy in France and are sold to restaurants for about £1 each. They are normally bought from snail farms by restaurants but increasing numbers are being caught in the wild.

The snails are also collected by amateur cooks, people after ‘food for free’ and a small number of British restaurants which flout the law, said Natural England.

They were introduced to the UK by the Romans and, at four inches long, are the largest in the country.

The Roman snail is used by top chefs to create 'escargot' dishes and they are considered a delicacy in France


Conservation workers say the snails are ‘easy money’ for poachers as they stay within a habitat of only 30 square yards and are easy to find because of their size.

And they are – obviously – not the most rapid of creatures in fleeing the poachers.

Volunteers at WoodChip Conservation, which patrols  the 160-acre woodland to put  off the poachers, said a 15 kilo (about 33lb) haul of around 400 snails could net the poachers around £400 when sold to restaurants, who serve them cooked with garlic butter.

Andy Keay, one of the volunteers, said: ‘A lot of people say they are only snails.

‘But they must be three to five years old to breed, so if you take them all out, you’re going to devastate the numbers very quickly. It makes me very angry.’

A delicacy down the ages

Mr Keay said he had recently caught a poacher as he walked  off with two ‘huge carrier bags full of snails’.

He added: ‘I told him he was breaking the law and I grabbed the bags and the snails stayed.’

The snails are found in a number of southern English counties, including Surrey, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire and Kent.

They only come out of a long underground hibernation to breed.

Natural England says they are not a threat to native species and are ‘naturalised and benign’.

Roman snails are a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it illegal to ‘kill, injure or take a Roman snail’ or ‘sell, offer for sale or advertise live or dead Roman snails’.

And the population at Banstead Woods are further protected by living in a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which means a special permit is required to remove any mollusc.

Snail poachers can be fined a maximum of £5,000 or receive six months in prison if found guilty under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 2008.

Police said that any breach of the law would be investigated.


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