The years-long journey to save a tiny snail you've never heard of

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/12/ [login to see] /the-years-long-journey-to-save-a-tiny-snail-you-ve-never-heard-of
Hiking is tricky when you're carrying a federally threatened species. Ally Whitbread carefully hopped over logs and dodged prickers while toting a cooler full of tiny, rare snails.

"I feel like I've got like 500 babies to take care of — just a very crazy mother hen," she said.

The Chittenango ovate amber snails and eggs inside are facing extinction — only dozens are estimated to remain at one waterfall in Upstate New York — but Whitbread is part of a team transporting a captive-bred population to a new, remote home for a shot at survival. Such a recovery process can take years to decades, and success is uncertain, but scientists are racing to better understand our planet's biodiversity before species are wiped out.