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Vigilance slows invasive species

NORTH CREEK – As time marches on, the prospect of the invasive species problem dying down in the Adirondacks does not seem likely.

However, through a combination of enforcement and education, experts hope the spread of invasives can at least be slowed down.

With that thought in mind, the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program and the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) hosted the Adirondack Forest Pest Summit in North Creek on Monday. The summit is part of New York state’s Invasive Species Awareness Week.

The summit kicked off at the Tannery Pond Community Center with an address by ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth, who said the key to controlling invasives comes from political will. And since about half of New York’s population resides in and around New York City and Long Island, people concerned about the issue need to get New York City on board.

Jerry Carlson of the state Department of Environmental Conservation reiterated that, saying, “The people making the decisions in New York live in New York City and Long Island.”

Gary Lovett of the Cary Institute was the keynote speaker and talked about why we keep getting forest pests and what we can do about it. He pointed out that international shipping is the single leading cause of introduced species. New York is under pressure from a number of forest pests, and more – like the Asian long-horned beetle, sudden oak death and the wood wasp – will likely appear soon, he said.

These pests don’t just affect government-owned forests. Lovett said the bulk of the economic impact falls on local municipalities and homeowners, and that current policies are insufficient to deal with the threat.

“They generally don’t go away once we’ve got them,” Lovett warned. “Current control measures are doing some good, just not enough.”

Lovett said that solid wood shipping containers, such as crates and pallets, should be replaced with plastic to help limit the introduction of pests. He also said that each year, a shipper can receive five warnings about introducing pests before tangible enforcement action is taken.

Lovett said forest pests not only affect trees but can have a negative impact on home values and safety, insects, fish and streams. Municipalities and homeowners lose property value as tree-lined streets become barren, and homeowners can have damage from sick trees, as well as the associated cost of removing those trees. Streams can become warmer, and insects and fish suffer from those changes as well.

Eradication of these pests is nearly impossible. Bio-controls, such as introducing predator insects, is expensive and dangerous. Dan Snider, who works on invasives in the Catskills and spoke later in the afternoon, said introducing a predator beetle to attack hemlock wooly adelgid costs between $4 and $8 per beetle. The beetles can be collected in the Pacific Northwest, but that, too, is expensive and time consuming. Researchers found few remaining beetles when release sites were checked again.

Lovett said in addition to stronger federal regulations, there needs to be an effort made to identify potential pests abroad. He said one idea is to plant sentinel trees, species native to North America, in botanical gardens around the world to see what pests might attack them. This would allow scientists to be more ready in case of an importation of that pest.

Carlson said that about 60 percent of New York is forested, and one in every 10 exotic plants or animals that lands in the U.S. becomes a pest.

He’s excited about the possible use of drones to help map and identify potential problem areas, and his department has started working on using the unmanned aerial drones, though the program is not fully operational yet.

Carlson also said the DEC’s swimming pool filter survey has been big success, encouraging people to look at the insects that get caught in their pool filters and report what they find to the DEC.

“If you can find it small, we can get rid of it,” Carlson said.

Carlson added that if a pest is found, it takes a “sustained commitment. If you take one year off, you lose the decade” of progress that had been made in eliminating the pest.

Emerald ash borers are making their way across the state and were recently confirmed as close as Saratoga County. Carlson said the bug will kill all ash trees.

“(We) don’t have a chance to stop it killing all the ash,” he said. “We do have a chance to make it take longer. If they’re all dead in 25 years that’s no good, but 60 to 70 years is a little better.”

The Don’t Move Firewood campaign has also been a success so far. New York and Wisconsin are the only states that have strict firewood movement regulations. In New York, it is illegal to move firewood more than 50 miles if it hasn’t been treated. The Nature Conservancy’s Leigh Greenwood said, ideally, that limit would only be 10 miles, but that isn’t realistic.

She also said including firewood sales in campsite reservations could have a huge positive impact.

Jeffery Speich is a regional land manager for DEC in Region 2 in New York City and talked about the impact the Asian long-horned beetle has had there. Public outreach about the pest had been so successful that people were actually drilling holes in trees to mimic the beetle marks in an effort to get the DEC to take down the “infested” trees.

After the full day of lectures on policy, science and impacts, about 40 of the attendees joined the ADK’s Cathy Peddler in the field for a demonstration on how to look for hemlock wooly adelgid.

The ADK has a new effort to get “backcountry forest monitors” working along trails in the Adirondacks. The idea is that hikers and other recreationalists are out in the field anyway, so they may as well take a few extra moments to help keep an eye out for pests.

Peddler said the iMap smartphone app is being used to map areas that have been checked.

“It’s a really simple, efficient way to help protect the Adirondacks and the hemlocks,” Peddler said.

While out in the field, looking at the hundreds of trees that made up the little area of forest the participants were in, Mark Whitmore had a reassuring message for the would-be invasive species volunteers.

“It is important to not get overwhelmed,” he said. “It’s most important to just get out and look.”

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