60 Grants and 3 Odd Weeds

The most recent Oregon State Weed Board meeting was notable for two reasons. 

1. There were a large number of high-priority grant applications.
The Board considered 86 applications and was able to fund 60 for a total of $1,370,000. The funded projects targeted weeds which have small infestations and  containment or local eradication is possible. The Board skipped over “hole-in-the doughnut” projects that would treat small areas in a larger sea of weeds and "treadmill" projects that would only suppress weeds temporarily.

2. The second notable part of the agenda came during consideration of species to add to the State’s official noxious weed list.
Typically, the Board considers non-native invaders that are spreading in Oregon or knocking on our door. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture (ODA) staff assess the risk of these invaders and recommend to the Weed Board those weeds that are likely to cause economic or environmental harm. Currently, the Weed Board lists 118 weeds and divides them into “A” “B” and “T” categories.

A Weeds

• These are the worst threats and are targeted for eradication or containment. There's a good chance you've never seen A weeds, which include:  kudzu, Paterson’s curse, and purple starthistle. 
• All known infestations of these weeds are under intensive control. 
• If you do see an “A” weed, we’d like to know about it (1-866-INVADER). 

B Weeds

• B weeds are “A” weeds that get out-of-hand. There's a good chance you've seen B weeds, which include:  blackberries, Scotch broom and yellow starthistle. 
• Abundant regionally or even statewide, suppressing their grown is the best we can do. 
• Many “B” weeds are targets for biological control.

“T” weeds 

• T weeds are "Targeted" weeds. The Weed board directs ODA Noxious Weed Program staff to pay attention to these.
• T weeds include all A weeds and some B’s that haven’t spread throughout their potential range.

What to do with 3 odd balls? 

Ribbon grass, cheat grass, and Western juniper didn’t fit the usual pattern when they came before the Board.

Ribbon Grass

Ribbon grass is a pretty horticultural variety of reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea. There is an infestation along the Metolius River starting at Camp Sherman and spreading downstream along the banks for a couple of miles. I’ve written about it before (post Aug. 24, 2011).
Reed canary grass itself is both a wetland weed and a valuable forage species. The challenge for the Weed Board was how to handle a unique local weed issue in an otherwise pristine habitat involving a horticultural variety of a widespread, sometimes-weedy, forage grass!
After an interesting discussion, the Board voted to list ribbon grass as both “B” and “T.”
The management plan for ribbon grass will focus on the banks of the Metolius. Treatments will start this fall. Hopefully, we can clean up the infestation and preserve one of Oregon’s most scenic spots for future generations of fly-fisherman, photographers, and visitors.

Cheat Grass 

Cheat grass isn’t pretty and it has annoying seeds that stick to your socks. It is well-adapted to dry habitats and it has been spreading in the West for over a century. Cheat grass is important ecologically because it shortens fire cycles. When cheat grass moves in, rangeland burns more frequently, and that is bad for sagebrush. Sage-grouse and other native species hat depend on sagebrush decline. Next year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will consider whether or not to list sage-grouse as a threatened species. Thus there is renewed attention on cheat grass.
It would seem to be a no-brainer to list cheat grass as a noxious weed, but, as was pointed out at the Board meeting, it is also an important forage species where little else will grow.
In the end, the Board decided not to list it but instructed staff to come up with an official policy recognizing that cheat grass can be a problem and keeping it out of important sage grouse habitat should be a priority.

 Western Juniper

The Board took a similar path with Western juniper, a native tree that is spreading like a weed (post June 1, 2013). Juniper encroachment is another reason sage grouse are declining and ironically, fire suppression favors juniper. Soon Oregon will have an official policy recognizing juniper encroachment as a problem. Hopefully that will encourage juniper removal from invaded habitats. It is unlikely that the Board would ever approve a grant for juniper removal by itself, but I expect we’ll see projects that include survey and treatment for cheat grass and other weeds that can move in after disturbances including juniper removal.

It is all related – nature is complicated!


-- post written by Dan Hilburn

On Lizards and Toads

Every January we’re inundated by top 10 lists, score cards, and annual reports reflecting on the past year. Here is one little invasive species story that didn’t make the news and won’t appear on anyone’s top 10 list for 2013.  I want to tell it to you before I forget because it illustrates the importance of communication, interagency cooperation, and digital photography -- all increasingly important in our world and in the fight against invasive species.

It all started with a phone call to the invasive species hotline (1-866-INVADER). Employees at a Beaverton distribution center had opened a shipping container full of ground-up tennis shoes from Indonesia. Don’t ask me why we’re importing shredded sneakers from the other side of the world, but we are. 

 Inside were live lizards. Not just one, but several and they were ready to get out. Thankfully the employees were aware that live critters from overseas can be problems, so they called the hotline and asked, “What should we do?”  My first thought was, "Who's in charge of that? US Fish & Wildlife, ODF&W, Customs and Border Protection?”

I was having flashbacks from five years when a toad hopped out of a shipping container carrying granite from China. One agency after another said, "not our problem," and the container languished on the dock for weeks until it was finally fumigated. The cost to the importer and agencies:  many hundreds of dollars, countless headaches, and more gray hair for all involved.

So instead of passing the buck, I asked if they could photograph the lizards and send pictures. They had a cell phone camera and did just that. I forwarded the photos to taxonomists here at ODA, to wildlife biologists at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and to the US Dept. of Agriculture. One of those people consulted with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Within hours the lizards were identified and the appropriate regulations reviewed. Thankfully they turned out to be a common species of gecko that is sold legally in the pet trade. A USFWS employee even offered to catch them and find them good homes. The cost to the importer and agencies: a few hours of staff time and some chuckles.

The lesson? Next time you’re confronted with a head-scratcher of an invasive species problem, think of the lizards that lived and not the toad that croaked! Take a picture, get on the phone, and let people know what you've found.
-- Dan Hilburn 

Lessons Learned from the Wilsonville Bee Kill

Before I saw it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that 50,000 bumble bees forage in the trees of a suburban big box store parking lot. They do. We know that now, because at least that many died in the Wilsonville, Oregon Target parking lot in a single week in late June. 

This picture was taken on June 17^th, two days after the trees were sprayed for aphids with a product called Safari. Each black dot on the pavement is a dead bumble bee, almost all of them Bombus vosnesenkii.

Picking up dead bumble bees.

The pattern was the same under each of 55 European linden trees (Tilia cordata), and the bees kept dying for a week until the City of Wilsonville led a heroic effort to cover each tree with shade cloth. Though this isn’t a traditional invasive species story, it contains lessons for invasive species warriors. 

Lesson 1: Oregon’s wild bee populations are healthy. There are a couple of known exceptions, but in general, we can be thankful that our native bees are thriving. This is important because wild bees pollinate many of our native plants and agricultural crops. Honeybees get all the credit, but native bees do much of the work. On a larger scale, healthy pollinators indicate healthy habitats; we’re lucky in Oregon to have an environment that is in pretty good shape – and worth protecting.

Lesson 2: Pesticides are powerful tools. Used correctly, they are often our most effective tools for early detection and rapid response programs (EDRR) programs.  Most eradication programs depend on them. However, they can occasionally cause problems. We need to learn from these instances to prevent them from happening again.

Lesson 3: Pesticide experts commonly refer to, “The label is the law.” That is true, but labels and laws are sometimes flawed and often open to interpretation. It could be months before the official investigation of this incident is complete and the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) determines whether there was a violation. Given this parking lot site, how would you interpret the Safari label language? “Do not apply this product or allow it to drift to blooming crops or weeds if bees are visiting the treatment area.” A supplemental label adds: “For trees in forests that are pollinated by bees or other invertebrates, make applications post-bloom.”

Lesson 4: Linden nectar by itself can be toxic to bees!* Dead bumble bees are not uncommon under unsprayed linden trees. The publicity generated by the Wilsonville bee kill resulted in many more reports of dead bees. Most of them turned out to be relatively small numbers probably not related to pesticides. So far, we’ve only found one other tree in Hillsboro that was associated with dead bee numbers similar to those in Wilsonville. That tree had been sprayed with the same pesticide last March. Other linden trees along the same street receiving the same treatment didn’t have any dead bees. That will be a puzzle for the investigators!

Interestingly, honey bees weren’t affected to the same extent as bumble bees.  The honey bees were foraging on the linden flowers, but few were dying. One reason might be that honey bees are from Europe; they evolved with European linden nectar.  We’ll have to wait for the investigators and scientists to sort out whether toxic nectar played a part in this incident.

Placing netting over blooming linden trees.

Lesson 5: When people work together, they can do amazing things. On Thursday, June 20, ODA hosted a conference call bringing together officials from the City of Wilsonville, entomologists from ODA, Xerces Society, and Oregon State University, and other interested parties. We discussed how to stop the bee kill as well as a long list of less palatable options, from cutting the trees down to spraying the trees with garlic-based insect repellent. The only option that seemed to have promise was to cover the trees with bee-proof netting, and it wasn’t at all clear how to do that. City of Wilsonville staff figured it out by the end of the day. The very next day, 60 people and six bucket trucks representing eight agencies/organizations went to work. Crews stapled panels of shade cloth together, passed 40’ X 40’ sheets to bucket truck crews, and with much tugging and adjusting, the netting was draped over the 25’ tall trees. At 5:10 PM, the last net was tied off at the trunk, and the Wilsonville bee kill was over.

It was a day I’ll never forget, and none of us should ever forget the lessons we learned. 

Dan Hilburn 

*Pawlikowski,T. 2010.  Pollination activity of bees (Apoidea: Apiformes) visiting flowers of Tilia cordata Mill. And Tilia tomentosa Moench in an urban environment. J. Apicultural Sci. 54(2): 73-79.