Learn About the Lungworm

The CTAHR Farm Food Safety Team, in collaboration with Hawai‘i State Departments of Health and Agriculture, has released a new video on Rat Lung Worm (RLW) disease prevention. It describes common slugs and snails found in Hawai‘i that may carry the parasite, explains how to find them in the garden and what sort of conditions they like, and gives tips on how to make the environment less appealing for them. Some things to do include cutting back vegetation so the pests have less places to hide, creating raised beds, and not leaving pet food out overnight. It also describes methods of deterring, trapping, physically removing, and killing slugs and snails. This is a potentially scary disease, but this video offers practical and down-to-earth advice that can help, so check it out.