Witham snail enthusiast saves 200 gastropods from escargot fate

More than 200 snails have been rescued from their fate as a French delicacy thanks to a gastropod enthusiast.

Connor Bouttell received the shelled creatures in the post after learning they were destined to become escargot.

They were added to his not-so-sluggish collection, which has taken over two of the three bedrooms at his family home in Witham, Essex.

“It makes me really happy that they won’t end up boiling in a pot,” the 18-year-old said.

He said he had been contacted by a farm in Northern Ireland that told him 200 of its snails were either going to be killed or sold to restaurants.

Thankfully, Mr Bouttell deemed himself to be the perfect man for the job of giving them a new home.

“I make custom enclosures for them… We’ve got a three-bed house and they take up the best part of two of the rooms,” he told BBC News.

“A lot of my friends like to come over and see it all for themselves, because I’ve got them in naturalistic set-ups.”

The teenager said despite the novelty of his snail-mail, some deliveries could end in heartache.

“It’s actually horrific, if I’m honest. You get quite a lot of snails that are crushed but still alive,” he said.

“Then it’s a case of putting them on end-of-life care and separating the alive from the dead.

“When there’s nothing I can do for them, it’s usually mum who does the dispatching part as I just can’t look.”

Mr Bouttell said he was often contacted by London Stansted Airport when its bemused border officers had confiscated snails.

His growing presence in the world of molluscs could quite often leave him inundated with requests for help, he added.

The enthusiast started caring for snails aged 10 and later invited snakes, tortoises and all kinds of creepy crawlies into the family home.

Having finished secondary school, Mr Bouttell set up his snail rescue charity, The Shelled Sanctuary, and said the work was his “mission” in life.

On Wednesday, he appealed for supermarkets with “wonky” vegetables to send them his way for the snails.

Posting on social media, he added: “I thought it would be a great way to reduce food waste while feeding the sanctuary snails.”