Mollusks, which include land snails, freshwater snails, mussels, clams, and slugs, are vital to healthy ecosystems. Land snails, for example, not only provide food for a host of small mammals and birds, but they play vital roles in recycling forest nutrients. Freshwater snails also provide food for fish, including native trout and salmon, and are also important recyclers of plant and animal waste, essentially keeping water clean and healthy. Mollusks are also considered excellent ecological indictors, their status providing a window into the health of entire ecosystems.

Inhabiting a variety of habitats, including old growth forest, streamsides, grasslands, rock slides, deserts, coastal scrub, rivers, creeks, springs, and wetlands, mollusks are as biologically diverse and as ubiquitous across the western United States as they are important to the health of these ecosystems. Known as the "shell makers," mollusks are the second-most diverse family of animals in the world. Numerous mollusk species are known from the region and new species continue to be discovered every year.

Despite their importance and diversity, western mollusks receive little conservation attention even as threats to their health and persistence grow precipitously. In the last decade alone, surveys have documented rampant population declines among many species. Inappropriate logging practices, livestock overgrazing, continued wildland road construction, water pollution, water diversions and dams, oil and gas drilling, urbanization, and mining are leading to widespread mollusk imperilment and even extinctions. Bush Administration rollbacks, including attacks on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, the Clean Water Act, and the National Forest Management Act, in conjunction with the escalation of many destructive land use practices, are exacerbating the crisis.

Center for Native Ecosystems and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance are working together to draw attention to and help protect endangered mollusks across the western United States.