– The municipality can not solve the task to remove these densily populated slugs alone, and we need help from other people All associations are encouraged to do voluntary work in August. If they register how many kilos of slug they collected, they will be rewarded with 200 NOK for each kilogram, says mayor Thorvald Hillestad in Re municipality to NRK.
Slugs thrive in wet and damp grass, and the population grows by mild winters and warm spring weather. The great majority of slug species are harmless to humans and to their interests, but a small number of species are serious pests of agriculture and horticulture. They can destroy foliage faster than plants can grow, thus killing even fairly large plants. They also feed on fruits and vegetables prior to harvest, making holes in the crop, which can make individual items unsuitable to sell for aesthetic reasons, and which can make the crop more vulnerable to rot and disease.
As control measures, baits are the norm in both agriculture and the garden. In recent years iron phosphate baits have emerged and are preferred over the toxic metaldehyde, especially because domestic or wild animals may be exposed to the bait. The environmentally safer iron phosphate has been shown to be at least as effective as poisonous baits.
