Snails poached for sale to French restaurants

Interesting article in The Telegraph this morning. Apparently the French are stealing snails from England! When ramblers in the Surrey countryside began to notice a suspicious absence of snails - plump, delicious "escargots" to be precise - even Inspector Clouseau himself might have been able to guess who was to blame. Now conservationists have urged police to crack down on an explosion in illegal poaching of Roman snails after discovering they were being gathered up en masse to meet a grisly, buttery end in local French restaurants.