What happens after you raise fish-eating snails

This is an unremarkable creature, with small eyes and short antennae, that turns very fierce at night. Drop in a small fish and it will be devoured completely in 3 or 4 hours. The snail is small, but its power is great. Relying on this kind of ivory snail, he earned millions a year, but then unfortunately suffered a shocking disaster. See how Yang Meng of Wengtian Town, Hainan Province, fought back against all odds, discovered a business opportunity in small flower snails, and achieved wealth and dreams.

This is the seafood dock at Yugang Street in Sanya City, Hainan Province. On December 3, 2015, at 7 a.m., as soon as the fishing boats returning to port docked, the pier immediately became bustling. Vendors rushed forward raising their baskets, all wanting to be the first to snap up the freshest catch. The fishing boats moored properly, goods were carried ashore box by box, and tourists vacationing in Sanya crowded together with vendors to compete for goods, becoming a unique sight here.

Everyone gathered at the dock to bargain, and some were even buying and selling on the spot. There were many kinds of seafood here: whitebait, red grouper, sea snake, Spanish mackerel, and hundreds of varieties of seafood in a dazzling array, all for everyone to choose freely.

Trading time at the dock is very limited, less than 2 hours. At this moment, one person in the crowd was anxiously searching. If he missed this peak period for buying goods, he would come away empty-handed all day. His name was Yang Meng, who had come specially from Haikou City. Before this, he had already traveled to nearly 10 docks in Fujian and Guangzhou, all ending in disappointment. Yang Meng was not interested in these fish and shrimp. He came here only to find one kind of snail.

Reporter: What are you looking for?

Yang Meng: I came here to look for ivory snail females. Brother, do you have ivory snails?

Vendor: No.

Yang Meng: Can you find any?

Reporter: There are none now? Why not?

Yang Meng: Because the price is too high. In the past many people caught them, but now there are fewer and fewer, and they are very hard to catch. Fish like this costs 2 or 3 yuan per jin, but if ivory snails are caught by the sea, they cost at least 50-60 yuan.

December is the off-season for snails, and added to the relatively high price of ivory snails, Yang Meng had already been walking around the dock for more than 1 hour and still had not found any. He was very anxious. While searching, he asked local vendors, but still had no luck. Many people did not even know what ivory snails were.

Yang Meng: Have you seen ivory snails?

Vendor: No idea, no.

Vendor: Ivory snails? Don't know, never heard of them, no one catches snails.

After circling the dock several times, even the fish vendors who often dealt with seafood had rarely heard of ivory snails. So what exactly are ivory snails, and why did Yang Meng insist on finding them?

After the search at the dock came up empty, Yang Meng planned to go out to sea himself. He told the reporter that recently he had been collecting female snails through various channels, and if all went smoothly, he could make a big profit this year.

Out in the vast sea, Yang Meng took a big risk. He just built a floating board and drifted straight out.

The seawater beneath his feet was dozens of meters deep, and we were all nervous for him. Waves came one after another at sea, and if he fell in, the consequences would be unimaginable.

After sailing more than 10 kilometers, we finally saw the ivory snails he was looking for.

Reporter: Are there any?

Yang Meng: This net is not bad. This net caught a few. It looks like this. This is the ivory flower snail. As soon as it is caught, it seems to go into hibernation. In the sea it crawls, but within a few seconds after leaving the water, it retracts its foot.

The ivory snail, also called the spotted ivory snail or flower snail, is a carnivorous shellfish that lives in tropical and subtropical waters. They like to hide in shallow seas, in mud and sand at depths of dozens of meters. Because ivory snails are small, they are inconspicuous hidden in the mud and sand. In the past, fishermen in Hainan only treated them as small miscellaneous snails. Even if they were caught by accident, they could hardly avoid being thrown away. No one had ever taken ivory snails seriously.

Yang Meng: Such a small snail is very inconspicuous here. In the past we could only cook these snails for ourselves to eat. There was no sales channel for snails on the market, and they could not be shipped out to the market.

Because no one knew where to sell them, in the past no one in Wengtian Town would make a special trip out to sea to catch ivory snails. Yet it was exactly this snail that everyone looked down on that Yang Meng used to create wealth of more than 3 million in just one year in 2014, and he also set up a cooperative to lead everyone to prosperity together. Now, in Wengtian Town, Wenchang City, Hainan Province, where Yang Meng is located, more than a hundred snail farms, large and small, have been built, and almost every household is farming ivory snails to make money.

Villager: In the past we raised shrimp, and everyone was raising them, but because ivory snails make money, as long as there is land people build farms. Profit is between 30 percent and 40 percent.

Villager: Everyone followed along and raised them together. I made more than 1 million.

By farming ivory snails, many villagers in Wengtian Town made a lot of money. However, when the reporter asked about the process of farming ivory snails, everyone's expression changed, as if they had been through a terrible nightmare.

Villager: It was terrible, they rotted, all the snails died. Even people who lived to 100 had never seen it, and everyone was very afraid.

Villager: People were gone, houses were gone, the houses collapsed. The sea area around us was basically all like this. Everyone was scared when they saw it. If it happened again, it would really be over.

Why would the money-making ivory snail make the villagers so frightened afterward, and what little-known story did Yang Meng have in farming ivory snails?

On December 4, 2015, when the reporter went to interview, Yang Meng took us to his snail farm. The ivory snail is a creature that hides by day and comes out at night. It is said that once night falls, it becomes very fierce.

Reporter: Where are the snails?

Yang Meng: In the sand, you can only see some antennae. At night they come out to look for food, and during the day they hide in the sand.

Normally ivory snails like to bury themselves in mud and sand. Once they smell something, they immediately come out to prey, and can even eat a fish dozens of times larger than themselves.

Yang Meng: This kind of fish is for the snails. Less than 2-3 seconds after it is thrown in, they immediately come up.

As soon as a small fish was thrown in, the whole pond of ivory snails was immediately awakened.

Reporter: They seem to be coming out.

Yang Meng: As soon as they smell the fish, they come out immediately. There they are, coming out.

The ivory snails came out in force, and in less than 10 seconds the whole fish was completely covered. It is said that they forage very fiercely, and in just 3 or 4 hours they can eat a fish completely clean. In Yang Meng's snail pond, the reporter saw that everywhere there were leftover fish bones and fish spines, making one's hair stand on end.

Reporter: It won't bite me, will it? It tickles. Doesn't it eat fish? Will it eat my hand? I feel like it is sucking on me.