Category Archives: invasive species

Pythons Devouring Everglades

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Small mammals have been almost completely wiped out in the Everglades by invasive pythons, a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said Monday.

If this sounds like journalistic exaggeration to you, it did to me too. Doubting the news reports, I went straight to the open access PNAS paper (in early release). Surveys from 2003 to 2011, the paper says, saw a:

“…99.3% decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations, decreases of 98.9% and 87.5% for opossum and bobcat observations, respectively, and failed to detect rabbits.”

Why should you care? Check out this map of potential python habitat in the U.S. Though many doubt pythons will spread out of south Florida, the risk is there.

Read the PNAS paper here. (A PDF)

Read the US Geological Survey press release here.

A story in the Washington Post is here. Google says that there were over 700 news reports on this. Here’s another from The Atlantic Magazine’s blog AtlanticWire.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently banned the important and interstate transport of pythons and other constrictors. Read more about that here.

Photo by Mike Rochford , University of Florida, used courtesy of the US Geological Survey

Nutria in Delaware: They’re Back

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An alert fur-buyer tipped off the Delaware Department of Natural Resources to a breeding population of nutria just barely on the Delaware side of the state’s border with Maryland in the northern part of the Delmarva Peninsula.

Nutria, an invasive, nonnative rodent, have been found in the Chesapeake Bay/Delmarva Peninsula region for decades. But mostly they are in Maryland, and in 2002, Delaware thought it had eradicated the last of the its own breeding population of the animal.

Read the Delaware Department of Natural Resources press release on the find, here.

Read a news-story from Delaware Online, a Gannett Company, here. The story includes a link to a Google map showing the pond where the nutria group was found.

Find out more about nutria in the region from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay Nutria Eradication Project, here. This Web site has a map of nutria presence on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlilfe Service

USFWS: No More Snakes on Planes

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“The US Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a rule that would ban the importation and interstate transportation of four nonnative constrictor snake species,” a press release from the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced today. The four snake species are: the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons.

The four species of snakes are listed as “injurious species” under the Lacey Act.

The press release notes: “The Burmese python has established breeding populations in South Florida, including the Everglades, that have caused significant damage to wildlife and that continue to pose a great risk to many native species, including threatened and endangered species. Burmese pythons on North Key Largo have killed and eaten highly endangered Key Largo wood rats, and other pythons preyed on endangered wood storks.”

Burmese pythons eat alligators. ‘Nuff said?

Florida’s congressional representatives have wanted the ban for years, says an article from the McClatchy news syndicate. A powerful pet snake lobby has stood in the way, the article says. Who would have thought that a story about nonnative snakes would require “following the money”?

Read the entire article — which includes a lovely graphic — here.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service release says that the ban of five more big, nonnative snake species is on the horizon. Read the entire press release here.

The service also gets in on “following the money.” Its handout on the cost of large constrictor snakes is here.

Photo: A Burmese python and an American alligator duke it out in the Everglades. Photo by Lori Oberhofer, courtesy National Park Service

USFWS: No More Snakes on Planes

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“The US Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a rule that would ban the importation and interstate transportation of four nonnative constrictor snake species,” a press release from the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced today. The four snake species are: the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons.

The four species of snakes are listed as “injurious species” under the Lacey Act.

The press release notes: “The Burmese python has established breeding populations in South Florida, including the Everglades, that have caused significant damage to wildlife and that continue to pose a great risk to many native species, including threatened and endangered species. Burmese pythons on North Key Largo have killed and eaten highly endangered Key Largo wood rats, and other pythons preyed on endangered wood storks.”

Burmese pythons eat alligators. ‘Nuff said?

Florida’s congressional representatives have wanted the ban for years, says an article from the McClatchy news syndicate. A powerful pet snake lobby has stood in the way, the article says. Who would have thought that a story about nonnative snakes would require “following the money”?

Read the entire article — which includes a lovely graphic — here.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service release says that the ban of five more big, nonnative snake species is on the horizon. Read the entire press release here.

The service also gets in on “following the money.” Its handout on the cost of large constrictor snakes is here.

Photo: A Burmese python and an American alligator duke it out in the Everglades. Photo by Lori Oberhofer, courtesy National Park Service

Alaska and RI Ban Felt Waders

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On January 1, 2012, Alaska and Rhode Island became the third and fourth states to ban the use of felt-soled waders in an effort to reduce the spread of the invasive algae, Didymo, and other invasive and noxious aquatic species. (The first two states are Maryland and and Vermont.)

A Missouri rule banning the waders in the state’s trout parks goes into effect March 1, 2012

Read about the Alaska ban in the Alaska Native News, here.
Read about the Rhode Island ban in the Rhode Island Striped Bass blog. (This regulation was passed so stealthily that I haven’t been able to find a brick-and-mortar news organization that covered it.)

Read an older round-up of felt-soled wader news in USA Today, here.

Keep track of the news on felt-soled wader bans on a state-by-state basis at the Center for Aquatic Nuisance Species website, here. (And bookmark the site for future felt-soled wader ban questions.) 

Our previous coverage on the subject is here.

Photo: What’s on your waders? A biologist conducts a fisheries survey in Wyoming. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Hawaiian Fence Even Keeps Out Mice

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When invasive species are harming the nests of ground-nesting birds, an obvious solution is to erect an exclosure. Sometimes that solution works, and sometimes it doesn’t. So just imagine the situation in Hawaii, where non-native rats and even non-native mice are part of the problem. It’s hard to keep those tiny critters out.

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) announced recently that a 2,040-foot long, 6.5-foot-high, stainless steel fence surrounding a 59-acre wedge-tailed shearwater nesting area on O’ahu is a success. This year’s chick count is up 14 percent, and is the highest number ever recorded at the colony. The fence has been up for eight months.

Read the ABC press release for the details. Also see the press release announcing the project, which has some interesting additional information, including that the project has spirit gate in an accommodation to local belief.

This is the first time such a fence has been used in the United States, but it was developed in New Zealand, which has a similar problem with ground-nesting birds and non-native predators that range from house cats (high jumpers) to mice (can squeeze in just about anywhere).

Check out this link for more information on the New Zealand-style exclosure fencing. It may be expensive, but it seems to be effective.

You may not have Hawaiian-caliber nesting bird issues, but even adopting some aspects of this fence can offer solutions to tough exclosure problems.

Photo by George E. Wallace, ABC, used by permission.

Possibility of Renewed Horse Slaughter Creates Controversy

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Tucked into a Department of Agriculture funding bill signed into law in the middle of November was a provision for funding inspections of U.S. slaughterhouses that slaughter horses. This reversed a 2006 law eliminating funding for those inspections, therefore closing all of the horse slaughter operations in the U.S.

This didn’t mean that U.S. horses haven’t been slaughtered for meat in the past five years, notes an article in the Christian Science Monitor, which was among the first to have the story. It means that U.S. horses to be slaughtered for meat were shipped to Mexico and Canada first, the article says.

That journey is long and unpleasant, notes the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — cruel, really. And while emphasizing that they support eliminating the slaughter of horses for meat everywhere, PETA has tenuously supported the refunding of inspections in the U.S., saying that it will reduce the cruelty of the horses being shipped for slaughter. (Read PETA’s blog statement here.)

The Los Angeles Times, while running the story a few days later, addressed the subtleties of PETA’s position. (Read the story here.)

The big issue, for wildlife managers, is that while privately-owned animals could be sent out of the country, the lack of inspection funding meant that there were fewer options for controlling populations of feral horses, which are a non-native species and can damage the habitats of native species. (See the feral horse position statement from The Wildlife Society, which is a four-page PDF.)

Only time will tell what this change of federal policy will mean for feral horses and native wildlife.

Photo: Healthy feral horses on a healthy range. Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Burro Removal in Texas

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It’s the wild horse controversy, served up Tex-Mex style, with shorter legs and longer ears. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is shooting wild burros found on state land in the Big Bend region. The burros have their advocates, and even on the adjoining Big Bend National Park, it is illegal to hunt the wild burros, which are not a native species, but are considered to be historically significant.

Read the Associated Press story on the controversy, which emphasizes the conflict between native bighorn sheep, prized by wealthy hunters, and the lowly burros, embraced by animal-lovers across class lines. Here’s the story in the New York Times. (But if you are trying to keep under your monthly article limit, here is the same story in the Washington Post.)

The Wildlife Society’s position is that burros are not native, and the feral animals need to be managed responsibly. Read the organization’s comment here.

Dead Lamprey Juice May Be The Answer

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Sea lampreys are the source of much angst among wildlife biologists. Are they native to this body of water? How long have they been here and where did they come from? In many locations, including the Great Lakes, sea lampreys are a huge problem that must be dealt with.

Lampricide, in theory at least, kills larval lamprey but doesn’t harm other stream residents. However some other species are sensitive, and there are always those native, non-trouble-making lamprey to worry about. Dams — temporary and permanent — across breeding streams have been tried, too.

The latest weapon in the war against invasive sea lamprey may be the odor of the decaying lampreys themselves.

Research at Michigan State University showed that the “stink” was easily extracted from rotting lampreys in the lab. Lampreys in tanks and swimming in raceways avoided areas that were treated with the dead lamprey extract.

The dead lamprey juice’s most likely use will be to deter lamprey from certain sensitive breeding streams. Or, it may be used to concentrate lamprey into a few streams so that lampricide applications can be more effective.

Field tests will be conducted this summer.

Read the open-access paper in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, here.

Read the Michigan State press release here.

Read an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel here. 

Photo by Kurt Stepnitz, courtesy of Michigan State University

Asian Carp Found in Wisconsin

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A bighead carp caught by an angler, and traces of silver carp DNA found in tests means that Asian carp have expanded beyond the Mississippi River, where they were first found in Wisconsin 1996, into Wisconsin tributaries, a recent release from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reports. The silver lining is that no evidence of the carp reproducing has been found.

The department is asking anglers to report and bring in (on ice) any Asian carp caught.

Read the WDNR release here — with a nice graphic (keep scrolling down).

The Wall Street Journal picked up the Associated Press’s article on the story. Read it here.

This short item was posted on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog. Read it here.

Photo: Yes, those are Asian carp behind that boat, but the boat is not in Wisconsin. Chris Olds, US Fish and Wildlife Service