Bishop Museum recently received a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Institute and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
The money will help advance research to prevent our native snails from going extinct.
Kenneth Hayes is the museum's curator of invertebrate zoology. He, along with researcher Norine Yeung, are excited to take their research to the next level.
They have completed a survey of over 1,000 snail sites, the largest survey of its kind ever conducted in Hawaiʻi.
They found a number of snails that were previously thought to be extinct in the wild.
Hayes told The Conversation what it was like to find a Kaʻala subrutila, a snail that had not been seen for fifty years.
"That's probably one of my most exciting finds. It's a really beautiful snail," he said. "We have the first photographs of it."
The new infusion of money will help build on research from the past decade with an emphasis on conservation through collaboration.
This interview aired on The Conversation on July 6, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
