Invasive
Species Removal
By Richard DeLorenzo
On Friday, November 11
th, Dr.
Tucker’s Conservation Biology class visited the Altamaha Waterfowl Management
Area. The management area consists of
3,154 acres of managed waterfowl impoundments and some 27,000 acres of
bottomland hardwoods and cypress-tupelo swamps (
http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/1406).
Waterfowl depend on wetlands for their survival, however wetlands are rapidly
declining. In order to preserve these animals’ natural habitats, state and
federal agencies are working together to create management areas. Managed
waterfowl impoundments provide the best habitat for migrating and wintering
waterfowl. The key to a successful waterfowl impoundment is the ability to control
the water level. A dependable water supply is a must. If you can control the
water, then you can influence the vegetation in the impoundment. By manipulating
factors such as water depth, timing of flooding, duration of flooding, and
timing of drawdown, you can provide the proper conditions for growing a variety
of food plants that are highly preferred by ducks (DNR).
Although these conservation efforts are in
place, the up keep of the impoundments must be maintained. Our class was going
to be providing assistance to local DNR biologists in their maintenance efforts
of the native vegetation. Eamonn Leonard was the botanist that would be
leading the expedition for the day. He was extremely knowledgeable in his field
and gave a background on how he ended up at DNR. The major goal for the trip was to remove some Invasive plant species
from the management area. A species is categorized invasive if it is not native
to the location where it is currently found, and harms or discourages other
species from persisting. Chinaberry and Chinese Tallow are two species of
plants that are considered invasive to South Georgia, and are in abundance at
this particular management area. The Chinaberry has no natural insects or
diseases to keep them in check. Both species are crowding out native species, taking
valuable resources from the environment, decreasing the amount of available
resources for native species. Both of these species are large growing and can
take up a large amount of resources.
In order to
remove these species from the area the class used machetes and hatchets to chop
them down. Once the trees were chopped down and/or wounded, a combination of
roundup and diesel fuel was used as a pesticide to destroy the plant. Adding diesel
to the Roundup allows for much better absorption into the tree. It also coats
the leaves causing photosynthesis to be far less efficient.
I am not an
avid hunter, and have never been duck hunting. Seeing the abundance of
different species of fowl in the area was eye-opening. Duck hunting plays an
important role in the community, and maintaining these management areas allow
the animals to be hunted at a sustainable rate. Although I have lived in this
community my entire life, this was my first visit to the Altamaha Waterfowl
Management Area. I did not realize that there was such a problem with the
wetlands declining, nor the importance these wetlands played on different
species. Learning about particular topics, like invasive species, and then
being able to apply that newly gained knowledge is very important. I did not
realize that many local areas are being affected by the very topics we are
discussing in class. It was neat to see what local DNR are working on, and get
biologists’ perspectives on the community. Getting the chance to help out the
DNR and gain knowledge was a great experience and was actually pretty fun.
Once these
plants are removed, the native plants will have a better opportunity to
flourish, providing a more natural sustainable habitat for the waterfowl
population. Invasive species are major problem in many areas and it takes a lot
of effort to get rid of these pests. It took approximately two hours in order
to remove about 100 yards of these invasive species. This is only a small dent
in the amount of vegetation that needs to be removed. It is up to the community
to step in and help protect their local flora.
Invasive Species Removal
By Gwen Lowe
Conservation Biology is about using
science to preserve different species and ecosystems around the world. In
class, we discussed topics such as overexploitation, invasive species, economic
values for ecosystem services, and problems that threaten biodiversity. In discussing these problems, Conservation
Biology gives ideas of what individuals can do to help eliminate problems that
the ecosystem faces.
On November 8, 2011, the
conservation biology class worked side by side with Georgia Department of
Natural Resources. Will Ricks was one of the facilitators who explained the
process of the day. He is a Wildlife Biologist
who mainly focused on the Waterfowl area in Brunswick. The Altamaha Waterfowl Conservation Area consists of over 3000 acres of managed waterfowl impoundments.
We observed some native plants in
the area, including the Button Bush. Animals
such as the mallard ducks and teal ducks consume the Button Bush. The process
for the day was to eliminate and destroy invasive plant species. Eamonn
Leonard, a botanist with GA DNR, explained that the invading species that we
were trying to kill consisted of the China berry and the Chinese tallow. These plants
were brought in years ago thru Savannah. Now they have become abundant and are
out-competing the native species. Roundup and diesel fuel were mixed together
forming a solution to help kill these invasive plants. In this process, we had
part of the team to cut the limbs of the trees and the other half of the class
came behind them and sprayed the parts of the tree that were cut with the
solution. The class and the DNR were
pretty much successful in getting the job done over a small area. We probably
could have covered more ground if time had allowed us to do so.
This process goes along with the
lecture of invasive species. We were taught that invasive species can outcompete
the native species for resources. Invasive
species pose threats to native animals and other plants. The individuals from conservation biology who
participated in this procedure all brought a positive attitude. We were all eager to learn about how to
destroy invasive plant species! This experience
proved to me that there is much work involved with the process of killing
invasive species. Once an invasive
species is established in an environment, it can be nearly impossible to remove
it completely.
The group worked well together as a
team. Teamwork is a very important factor in processes such as this one, and my
favorite aspect of this type of work. We
all worked together and accomplished the task for the day. Also, I’m a people person with great
communication skills which played a large role in getting information needed to
write this blog. Communication was
necessary! Anywho, I’m glad that I could
donate my time for a worthy cause. This
was a meaningful project that taught me more about handling invasive species. Although we had already talked about it in
class, I actually learned more about the process by doing hands-on work with
it. Even though the class and I smelled of diesel fuel, this was my favorite
project for this semester in conservation biology.
