There may be fewer tourists walking the Abel Tasman track, but a group of carnivorous snails that call the park home are getting a hard time from a booming weka population.
Both the critically endangered Rhytida o’connori and nationally declining Powelliphanta hochstetteri snails are found in the Abel Tasman National Park, near Nelson.
Project Janszoon have been monitoring the snails at two sites for the past four years and have found while numbers are increasing in the Canaan area, their numbers are falling in the upper Wainui Valley.
Scientific advisor Ruth Bollongino said snails were facing pressure from predators and the hot and dry summers which resulted in changes in the forest.
