invasive species

It took Dee Hillberry six years before he could get a handle on encroaching and hardy invasive vegetation. Working on two separate properties, he removed tamarisk trees, or salt cedars, from 200 acres along Cottonwood Creek and Russian olive trees from 100 acres along the Big Horn River. Despite...

Inner city youth helped protect an ancient forest wilderness in the Siuslaw National Forest by spending a day removing invasive tansy ragwort. High school students from the Inner City Youth Institute in Portland, Oregon, arrived in the Drift Creek Wilderness near the Alsea River, where Douglas fir...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. Cogongrass makes kudzu look like a lightweight. A perennial grass, it grows on every continent except Antarctica and has...

The shiny green one-half-inch-long, one-eighth-inch-wide emerald ash borer has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in the U.S. since the beetle’s discovery in 2002 in Detroit. The real Ash trees comprise around seven percent of the trees in eastern U.S. forests. In urban areas, ash trees make up...

Two years ago, the Nisqually Shellfish Farm south of Belfair, Wash. didn’t have a chance. Runoff from surrounding homes and dairy farms polluted Henderson Inlet, and the state declared the water unfit for raising shellfish for human consumption. Worsening the problem, the place was overrun with an...

The Molokai Land Trust (MLT) is a partner of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in its efforts to restore native landscapes on the Island of Molokai in Hawaii. MLT and NRCS have partnered together on many projects, including the one highlighted in this post. Justin Fritscher, NRCS. The...

Three out of every five Civil War battles were fought in Virginia, so it should come as no surprise that some of the work of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is taking place on hallowed ground. In Winchester, Va., the agency is partnering with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields...

I have the Great Lakes in my blood. Born and raised on the shores of Lake Huron, my sisters and I spent countless summer days playing in the water and running along the beaches of soft singing sand. The Au Sable River, a clear blue ribbon trout stream, empties into Lake Huron in Oscoda, Mich., my...

Spring is often associated with ramps, rain, flowers and frogs, but on the Monongahela National Forest, the season of rebirth is focused on protecting our woods from garlic mustard. Garlic mustard is a non-native invasive plant first brought to America by European settlers in the 1800s. They enjoyed...

The New Jersey Invasive Species Strike Team is working to prevent the spread of emerging invasive species across New Jersey, and they’ve created a smartphone app to help. Using part of a 2013 Conservation Innovation Grant from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the team has released an...