Naturalists are breeding and releasing 11 species of Polynesian snails
that were extinct in the wild, killed by an
intrusive predator snail
that humans had brought,
hoping it would wipe out another invasive
snail.
The technique of releasing an intrusive predator to control a pest
species has often backfired in this way.
Cane toads in Australia
are
a prominent example.
I wonder if robots could be programmed to efficiently find and kill
the two intrusive species of snails. It might be easy to distinguish
them from all the other species actually present in a given island,
making the robots reliable there even if they might not be reliable
elsewhere.
Unlike intrusive life forms, robots are easy to prevent from becoming
a pest. They don't reproduce, and they need the help of humans to
recharge.