be fewer than 500, and their existing habitat covers 3 to 4 ha. The Wildlife Permit granted allowed Solid Energy to mine 96% of this area. There was also concern over the destruction of Powelliphanta habitat by the mining company OMYA on Mount Burnett, in Golden Bay. Translocations In early December 2006, twenty snails removed from Solid Energy's opencast mine expansion at Stockton were released back into the wild. By late December 2006, one of the 20 translocated snails had been found dead. A further 20 snails collected from the ridgeline of the mine site were also released about 800 metres from where they were found into an area of the Stockton Plateau that will not be mined. On 8 January 2007 the Department of Conservation announced plans to release another 200 snails back into the wild at Stockton open-cast mine. In April 2010, a Department of Conservation officer reported that 1552 snails were still held in refrigerators in Hokitika. In August 2010, Rod Morris reported in Forest and Bird on the status of P. augustus. Morris had visited the re-location site, just northwest of the original Mt. Augustus site, where the original soil and vegetation from Mt. Augustus had been transferred to. He observed that larger trees had died, and introduced weed species such as gorse and rushes had invaded. Morris stated "The once complex mosaic of dense, low sub-alpine scrub and deep undisturbed litter has gone". However, 1600 snails had been translocated from Hokitika to the re-created site. Another 2300 snails had been moved to two sites at Mt Rochfort. At each site, 50 snails were tagged with transponders and these snails had a 30% rate of mortality after 18 months. Morris noted that Landcare Research considered that the snail populations would not survive that rate of mortality. In November 2011, 800 snails died in a Department of Conservation fridge. References External links Boyer S., Wratten S. D., Holyoake A., Abdelkrim J. & Cruickshank R. H. (2013). "Using Next-Generation Sequencing to Analyse the Diet of a Highly Endangered Land Snail (Powelliphanta augusta) Feeding on Endemic Earthworms". PLoS ONE 8(9): e75962. . Powelliphanta augusta discussed on RNZ Critter of the Week, 12 October 2018 Powelliphanta Gastropods described in 2008 Endemic molluscs of New Zealand Endemic fauna of New Zealand