Week of June 29, 2008

Emeral ash borer confirmed in Quebec

OTTAWA, June 26, 2008 – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed the presence of the emerald ash borer (EAB) in the Montérégie region of Quebec.

EABdoes not spread quickly on its own. In fact, it is most commonly spread when people move materials which it has infested. Moving these materials even just a few kilometres away can spread the emerald ash borer to new areas.

We all have a responsibility to protect Canada’s forests and area residents can play a key part in helping to control the spread of EAB by not moving firewood, logs, branches, nursery stock, chips or other ash wood.

The Government of Canada is working hard with provinces and municipalities to limit the spread of the emerald ash borer and safeguard our valuable forests.

CFIA will be carrying out increased surveying of trees in the area to determine the extent of the infestation and affected property owners will be notified. Regulatory measures to control this pest will be taken based on information obtained through the surveys. CFIA continues to work with its partners and stakeholders toward the goal of slowing the spread of this destructive pest.

Additional information is available on the CFIA web site at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/ or by calling 1-866-463-6017.

For more information, contact:

Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Media Relations: 613-228-6682

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Northern snakehead fish found in creek in Orange County, NY

In late May 2008, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Fisheries staff responded to a report by a local fisherman of an invasive species in Catlin Creek near Ridgebury Lake in the Town of Waywayanda, Orange County. Subsequently, DEC conducted an investigation and verified the presence of the Northern Snakehead (Channa argus), a species native to Asia.

While the Northern Snakehead is not a threat to human health or safety, it is an aggressive predator that has the potential to prey on and compete with native fishes throughout New York State.

DEC has taken immediate action to contain its spread by erecting fish barriers in Catlin Creek. In addition, DEC has determined that swift action to eradicate this species is essential to protect native fish populations and prevent any possible expansion of Northern Snakeheads beyond the headwaters of Catlin Creek.

To ensure complete removal of this invasive species, the Department proposes to treat the infested waters of Ridgebury Lake and Catlin Creek above the County Route 6crossing, including DEC mapped Wetland MD-26, with the aquatic pesticide Prenfish. Prenfish is a specially formulated product developed for eradication of fish from lakes, ponds, streams and reservoirs and has been used for many decades to restore aquatic ecosystems throughout the United States. The active ingredient, Rotenone, is an extract from several different tropical plants and breaks down rapidly after application with no lasting toxicity. The proposed application will be undertaken by DEC staff trained and certified as aquatic pesticide applicators.

DEC sent letters to all riparian (waterfront) landowners and those with user rights notifying them of the possible use of this aquatic pesticide. DEC is also holding a public meeting Tuesday, July 8 from 7:00 - 9:30 P.M. at the Waywayanda Town Hall, 80 Ridgebury Hill Road, Slate Hill, NY to present information about the Northern Snakehead fish, discuss alternatives to stop the spread of this invasive species and take public comments.

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Unlikely Heroes: Goats Rescue N.Y. Bog Turtles

By John Nielsen, NPR, All Things Considered

The last of New York's wild bog turtles live in swamps that have long been sunny, mucky places full of low green plants and waist-deep mud pits. But an invading foreign weed threatens to transform the swamps and wipe out the turtle population.

The old-fashioned way to save endangered species such as the bog turtle was to build a fence around them to keep people and farm animals away. That method has been turned upside down in New York's Hudson River Valley, where domestic goats and cows are instead trotting to the rescue of the turtles and their murky swamp home.

The mud pits that fill the region's swamps are actually a mess of hidden streams that the bog turtles use like freeways, says Jason Tesauro, who works for the Environmental Defense Fund.

"This is the female we always find at this site," he says, pulling a turtle out of a mud puddle. The small adult bog turtle rests in the palm of Tesauro's hand. It is mild-mannered, he observes, as the head re-emerges from the 3-inch shell.

"That's as big as they get," says Tesauro. "You can see she has an orange neck patch. That's sort of diagnostic. And she's old. You can tell from the smoothness of her back. That's from the abrasives in the soil."

It's likely that bog turtles live for more than 80 years in sunny swamps like this one, he says.

But a giant foreign weed has invaded many of these swamps and threatens that bright future. Known as phragmites, or the common reed, it grows quickly into dense thickets that steal the sunlight and dry out the soil.

"It seems to be moving at a good 10 feet a year," says Tesauro, who has worked in the swamps for five years.

Mowing is not a solution because the weeds grow back quickly. However, Tesauro says he rarely sees phragmites in a well-grazed pasture.

Which helps explain why John Addrizzo, the owner of a company called New York State Meat Goat Associates, has a tractor-trailer full of goats parked on the far side of the thicket.

Goats to the Rescue

Addrizzo drove the trailer up from New York City. As he opens the trailer's doors, the goats bound out, straight into the foreign phragmites patch. The goats will eat all of the plants they can find in the swamp — Addrizzo calls it browse — and then find more, he says.

"Goats prefer browse to anything else," he says. "So what happens is that they'll eat all the browse and when that happens they'll start to girdle the trees. They bite around the edge, and it just kills them."

Addrizzo says the thought of using goats to save endangered turtles used to seem ridiculous to him. Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is working in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, started paying him to do it. Now it seems like a crazy plan that just might work.

"It's a unique project," he says. "Plus they fertilize the area, so there's a little give and take."

The native plants devoured by the goats tend to bounce back in a hurry, says Tesauro. But the big phragmites thickets cannot survive the constant grazing.

"They will knock down all the standing biomass within a season," he says. "If you were to come back here two months from now, we could stand here and see the back line of that fence — and we can't see any of it now."

The Turtles Return

A neighboring swamp several miles up the road is a model for the environmental effect that goats or other livestock can have. A year ago, the area was one big, dried-out weed patch, says Tesauro. Now, after a herd of hungry livestock devoured the phragmites, it's a sunny swamp again.

The rare bog turtles are returning and laying eggs on dried-out dirt mounds, he says.

"The turtles actually said this is a pretty nice nesting habitat," he says. "We're doing good here for sure."

This neighboring swamp was actually cleared by local dairy cattle and not goats shipped in from New York City, says Tesauro. He hopes to continue to use cattle to devour phragmites after the federal funds that pay for the goats run out in a few years. However, he says that plan depends on the small farmers who own the cattle remaining on their farms — an uncertain future, as more and more of them sell their farms to wealthy people from New York City. Story

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Week of June 22

Officials Unsure What Is Causing Absence Of Weeds

By Patrick Fanelli pfanelli@post-journal.com

Nobody knows why, but there is something conspicuously absent from the waters of Chautauqua Lake, New York.

Drive past places like Burtis Bay, and the red tint and still water that is normally a symptom of the lake’s Eurasian milfoil epidemic are gone. So, too, are the weed clippings that clog up the shoreline.

For the past few years, the invasive weeds were in full bloom by this time of the year. While one can’t say for sure what is hindering weed growth all over Chautauqua Lake, county lake officials only hope it stays this way into the busy summer season.

‘‘The weeds, I’m guessing, are probably two weeks behind, and that’s a good thing,’’ said Bill Evans, Chautauqua Lake Management Commission chairman. ‘‘So something is going on. As a matter of fact, we’ve been having quite a bit of discussions about it.’’

While Evans jokes about how tempting it is to credit the efforts of the variety of lake organizations that comprise the CLMC, he believes Mother Nature deserves the credit.‘‘Mother Nature has certainly been good to us so far,’’ said Evans, who owns a lakeside home on Summit Street in Lakewood. ‘‘It’s not hard to see. (The weeds) are not nearly as high as they should be as we approach the end of June.’’

In recent years, relatively warm winters resulted in an ice cover that was unusually thin and broke an abnormally high number of times, allowing a greater amount of sunshine into the water — and this was sometimes blamed for the explosive growth in 2006 and 2007. While no one can say for sure whether this really was one of the causes, an inadequate ice cover wasn’t a factor this past winter.

‘‘That deterred the weeds somewhat, but then when it got warm in April, I got nervous,’’ said Karen Rine, who heads the Chautauqua Lake Partnership, a group that advocates for the spraying of herbicides in certain parts of the lake to hinder weed growth.

For the most part, though, the weeds still haven’t grown to the surface of the water. ‘‘I really don’t know why, because the conditions were optimum in the spring — but there was an awful lot of wave action on the lake. That’s my take,’’ said Mrs. Rine, who lives along the shore of Burtis Bay in Celoron.

While the region may have enjoyed some pleasant days this past spring, temperatures across the board were lower than normal, says Evans — a factor that may also have contributed to the slow weed growth.In addition, Robert Johnson — who manages Cornell University’s Research Ponds Facility and studies Chautauqua Lake’s weed infestation — is exploring the possibility that weed-eating insects are slowing down the weed growth, according to CLMC officials. Article

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Invasion of alien snails: what to do about them

MyrtleBeachOnline.com

The gummy-looking, droplet- like clusters of pink eggs that clung to the bank of the pond appeared harmless enough, but S.C. nature officials are worried the snails that hatch from those eggs could pose a health risk and cause widespread ecologi cal damage.

The island apple snail has been found for the first time in South Carolina in about a dozen ponds in the Laurel Woods subdivision and the Heron Point Golf Club off S.C. 707.

Now, offi cials are trying to eradicate them before they spread to the Waccamaw River, which would make containment efforts much harder.

"Ideally, they would be exterminated," said David Knott, a marine biologist with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. "If it's feasible, and we can do it without causing environmental damage, that's what we'd like to do.''

The snail could eat just about all the plants in a pond, and displace and even feed on native snail populations, Knott said.

The snail also carries a parasite that could cause fatal menin gitis and can transfer to people if it is handled without gloves, although Knott said he was unaware of a case in the U.S.

The island apple snail, indi genous to South America, is one of several apple snail species. Of greater concern to biologists is the channeled apple snail, which can devour rice and taro crops and is the 73rd worst invasive species in the world, according to the Global Invasive Species Database.

The channeled apple snail has been found in Arizona, California, Hawaii and maybe Alabama, according to a DNR press release.

The island apple snail as been introduced in Texas, Florida and Georgia, the press release said.
The island apple snail cannot survive for long in water below 50 degrees, but it can burrow into the ground if the temperatures drop. Overall, South Carolina appears to be just warm enough for the snails, Knott said.

To get rid of the snail, the DNR is spraying copper sulfate, a federally approved pesticide, in the infested ponds. The blue, granular substance will also kill algae but should not have any other detrimental effects.

Michael Hook, a field supervisor with the DNR's aquatic nuisance species program, said he sprays about 10 feet from the edge of the pond, where most of the snails live. The DNR plans to treat the infested ponds once a month throughout the summer, he said.

SC Dept. of Natural Resources. (803) 734-9100 Article

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