Sustainable Control of the Golden Snail (Pomacea Canaliculata Lamarck) on Irrigated Rice Field in Malaka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia

The long-term goal of this research is to manage and control golden snails (Pomacea canaliculata Lamarck) – the rice pest of irrigated rice field - in a sustainable manner at Malaka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province, with emphasis on the snail utilization as economic resources so that the pest population would always be under control. Influence of day light to the snail behavior, the capability of snail hunting, feeding strategy of duck, and the snail for duck ration were studied from 2014 to 2016. Results showed that the snails existed on the surface of the mud in dark conditions (93.6 %) significantly more than in the light conditions (78.5 %), while in the mud they were 6.4 % in dark conditions and 21.5 % in light conditions. It implies to ease in the snails huntingat night. The ability to collect snails by a child was similar with adults of both women and men, i.e., between 9.42 to 12.82 with an average of 11.49 kg · 4 h−1. The ducks were able to eat fresh snails of less than 4 cm in size and rejected the bigger ones. The snail was very good for duck ration, the ducks fed on snails in their local ration produced eggs as many as when they fed on standard ration. With the price of fresh snail IDR 1 000 · kg−1 and usefulness of the snail, it may motivate to collect the snail continuously, and in turn, sustainable control of the pest will go on.   Keywords: Duck, Golden snail, Malaka, Pomacea canaliculata, Ric