Badger sportsmen can be in a unique position on the front lines in the war against invasive species in Wisconsin. And you don’t have to expend any effort by pulling garlic mustard or cutting down a buckthorn tree or spraying pesticide to help. All you need are your eyes to observe an invader and your phone or the internet to report it.
Wisconsin has an invasive species rule called NR40 that went into effect on September 1, 2009. After eight years of study and observation, 128 invasive species were divided into two categories: restricted and prohibited. NR40 covers plants, animals and microorganisms.
Restricted species are already widely established in the state and complete eradication is unlikely. High environmental and economic impacts have already occurred (in a bad way). The most we can hope for is control, which is encouraged but not required. It is illegal to transport, transfer, or introduce these plants. You’ve probably heard of a lot of the restricted plants. Perhaps they’ve already ruined your hunting grounds or fishing lake. They include garlic mustard, purple loosestrife, phragmites, narrow-leaved cattail, tansy, teasel, wild parsnip, dame’s rocket, leafy spurge, Canada thistle, flowering rush, multi-flora rose, Oriental bittersweet and many more.
Prohibited invasive plants are the ones where your help is needed. They are not yet in our state or are only in a few places. These plants will cause environmental and economic harm if they take hold. At this point, eradication and prevention is still feasible, but only if people take note and report them as soon as they creep into our state. Like restricted plants, it is illegal to transport, transfer or introduce the prohibited plants. In addition, it is illegal to even possess them.
You’ll be less familiar with the list of prohibited plants, unless you’ve spent time in the eastern or southern U.S. where most of these interlopers began their offensives. Some of the prohibited species are Japanese hedgeparsley, European marsh thistle, poison hemlock, black swallow-wort, Japanese hops, Chinese yam, Japanese stilt grass, hairy willow herb, porcelain berry, yellow star thistle, giant hogweed, mile-a-minute vine, kudzu (yep, the plant that ate the South is on its way to Wisconsin).
Please take a look at the photos here and save this article to refer to in case you think you see one of them. A full list with photos of most of the restricted and prohibited plants can be found at http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Invasives/. It’s always a good idea to check at least two photos to correctly identify plants.
If you think you spot a prohibited plant in Wisconsin, take a photo if possible and make note of the location (GPS coordinates are wonderful, but not necessary). Report your find by calling Mindy Wilkinson, Invasive Species Project Coordinator, at 608-266-6437, or e-mail her at invasive.species@wi.gov or follow the reporting instructions at dnr.wi.gov and type in the keyword “invasives.”
You might be wondering why you should care about invasive species at all. Because your ash trees are eventually going to be killed by emerald ash borer. Because your kids are going to cut their feet on zebra mussel shells on the beaches of Lake Michigan and Lake Winnebago. Because when you bike the state recreation trails you’ll see mile after mile of ugly buckthorn, garlic mustard, dame’s rocket and reed canary grass instead of the beautiful native plants they’ve replaced: trillium, solomon’s seal, hoary puccoon, bloodroot, stiff goldenrod, blue-eyed grass, wild geranium and so many more. Because while invasives provide food for birds in the form of berries and seeds, they support few insects and caterpillars that provide protein and fat needed by birds to form eggs, for energy when caring for their young, and most important, for the baby birds themselves. Because the garlic mustard that covers the forest floor in our state parks is changing the chemical composition of the soil, making it incompatible with the needs of tree seedlings that would regenerate the forest as the older trees die. Because the animals you hunt and fish for rely on native plant and animal species for food, and invasive species have been rolling over them like steamrollers, crowding them out or changing conditions so they cannot survive.
You’re out on the front lines anyway. Please help!
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