Invasive species- good news, bad news
This season, Oregon Field Guide viewers saw several more stories on invasive species. It’s part of our continuing campaign to Stop the Invasion, a campaign we kicked off with our one-hour documentary special on invasive species “The Silent Invasion.”
The Silent Invasion first aired over a year and a half ago, and a lot has happened since. Some good. Some bad. On the bad front, I’ve been getting a troubling number of updates about new invaders spotted around the country, including in Oregon. The Rusty Crawfish is a recent one found along the John Day river that could threaten the native crayfish that belong there. And nationally, Lake Michigan is bracing for what looks like the inevitable invasion of asian silver carp, a really, nasty fish that somewhat comically flies through the air .
In other news, though, Oregon legislators took action against invasive species in the last session. 11 of 12 invasive species-related bills passed, most with funding. That’s never happened before. You can find out more about those bills here.
Because I’ve become something of a nerd about invasive species, you can follow my occassional tweets on the subject on Twitter. My Twitter name OFGProducerEd. And if you see or hear news about invasives you think we might be interested in, feel free to let us know, on Twitter, or right here on our blog.
Feral Pigs? Meet the Press….
The rise of Porkulous! No, we’re not talking about a pet-nickname for the stimulus package, we’re talking about the chatter that’s bubbling to the surface regarding feral pigs. We aimed our cameras at these invaders for a story a few weeks ago on Oregon Field Guide. Now they’re the headline grabber in a recent Oregonian editorial:
Here’s how the Oregonian describes the recent legislation:
“Gov. Ted Kulongoski is sponsoring House Bill 2221, which would criminalize the sale or purchase of hunts for feral swine. The maximum punishment for this misdemeanor would be a year in prison, a $6,250 fine, or both, with renovation of hunting licenses, tags and permits for two years..”
How the bad guys hitched a ride…
The Oregonian headline today (10/27) doesn’t scream for attention: “Federal invasive species rules fall short, Oregon says”, but this story is a very, very big deal when it comes to invasive species. A telling passage in the story reveals how something few people have ever heard of–ballast water– has wreaked havoc on Oregon’s environment :” Ships are believed to have imported on their hulls or in ballast water more than a third of the 81 alien species documented in the lower Columbia River and 52 in Coos Bay, studies show.”
Snapper Saga
With all the excitement around the airing of The Silent Invasion, I had an interesting “small world” story happen to me. I live near Fanno creek in Tigard. One of the things that convinced me OPB should help launch a “Stop the Invasion” campaign was watching invasive plants encroaching on habitat along the creek.
After the program aired, I thought I’d do my part by reporting the worst invaders I saw along the Fanno Creek trail. I was sitting at my computer filling out a report on the Oregon Invasives Online Hotline about Giant Hogweed when the doorbell rang. It was a woman asking for help getting a large turtle back to the creek. When we got to the spot, the turtle turned out to be a fairly large Snapping turtle, a species not native to the Northwest. This turtle should definitely not be in Fanno creek, close to known habitat for native Western Pond turtles. Even though the neighbors who had gathered were concerned for the turtle’s well-being, I explained why the turtle couldn’t go back to the creek and would likely have to be euthanized.
I called the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife for advice. They had me keep the turtle in a tub with water for a day until someone could pick it up. The story has a happy ending. A wildlife care center in Texas wanted the turtle for use in educating people about protecting Snappers where they are native. Now I’ll have to keep my eyes open to make sure Mrs. Snapper isn’t still in Fanno.
Ugly Betty vs. the mollusks!
We were at 22,000 feet headed for Vegas when panic struck me. Beside me were 2 Oregon Field Guide photographers and in the cargo hold was case upon case of TV gear. It was a smooth flight– that wasn’t the issue. But we were about to go well beyond Oregon’s borders to spend 4 days in the Nevada desert with a crew of 3, taking up the time of a dozen National Park Service, Division of Wildlife and Bureau of Reclamation officials, heading out on boats and trucks and sending divers underwater, all so viewers at home could see…..mussels? Quagga mussels, at that. A species most people have never heard of and that, frankly, isn’t much to look at.
How would a story about some slimy, dime-sized mollusk ever compete with Ugly Betty and Survivor: China?
Some stories are so important, some environmental issues so consequential to Oregonians that we go the extra mile…or 1400 miles…to tell it. This was one of those stories. (and they’ll be more on these quaggas in an upcoming invasive species documentary, by the way, just in case you didn’t get your fill)
Google “quagga mussels” and you’ll see story after story, mostly from the eastern U.S, documenting the misery these nasty invasive mollusks have caused. but westerners haven’t heard much about them yet- mostly because until last year quaggas didn’t exist west of the 100th meridian. But it doesn’t matter whether you are a fisherman, farmer, condo owner, ranch hand, right winger or left winger….you DO NOT want these guys in Oregon, and we produced this story so that Oregonians could get a better understanding of why.
So was it worth it to fly all the way to Vegas (where quaggas recently showed up) to tell the story? Well, if we did our jobs right and it causes boat owners, fishermen, hikers and the like to take extra care not to inadvertently escort these invasive species into Oregon, then yes. Absolutely.
A side note:
I recently heard a debate about invasive species that went along these lines “people are part of nature, and if we move species around from place to place, country to country, it’s only natural. Survival of the fittest, right?” Philosophical arguments aside, my utilitarian answer is this: “you weed your garden, don’t you?
I think we need to start thinking about the native Oregon landscape as our garden. Using the survival of the fittest argument a few dominant invasive species would move in and destroy the plants and animals that came before (goodbye salmon, sturgeon, elk,oak trees, etc, etc). Just a suggestion here, but a more intelligent approach might be to take the time and effort to try to maintain the beauty and balance that exists here already. Weeding a garden takes time, and a little work, but in the end you get the garden you want, not the pile of ivy and scotch thistle that muscles (or mussels, in the case of quaggas) it’s way in.
Thoughts on Sudden Oak Death
I remember the day a colleague of mine came by my desk ranting about Sudden Oak Death. He’d just finished a phone call with an ecologist of some sort and he painted a bleak, bleak picture of this new plant disease. It was so over-the-top that I thought he was recapping an episode of CSI: Sudden Oak Death. I was skeptical, but I called the ecologist myself.
I do not want to be the millionth reporter to ‘cry wolf’ about this or that. But in my 6 years of reporting for Oregon Field Guide I can’t remember an issue where the stakes were so high and yet public awareness was so low. This much I learned: Sudden Oak Death could devastate Oregon’s forests. It could drive tanoak to extinction. Wildlife will suffer. And if the disease takes hold, there will be no avoiding the sight of huge swaths of dead forest.
And yet it’s something that, perhaps, we can stop.
