With the help of provincial funding, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) is tackling the spread of three invasive plant species in the region.
The $10,000 contribution from the Invasive Species Action Fund (ISAF) — a grant program designed to facilitate “on-the-ground management” and monitoring of invasive species in Ontario — is going toward control measures against dog-strangling vine, Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed, according to the conservation authority.
Brandon Williamson, land management co-ordinator with the UTRCA, told Global News these invasive plants grow throughout the local watershed, posing “a threat to native biodiversity and a hazard to the community.”
“We know that these three species are very prevalent across the watershed,” he said. “There’s dozens of invasive species and invasive plant species in our area, but the fund was very specific to species listed under the provincial Invasive Species Act.”
On Monday, the province announced that the government is providing $561,000 to ALUS Canada for a three-year project targeting ecosystems in southern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area. The government said this is one of many on-the-ground projects funded through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program with the goal of benefiting a wide diversity of species at risk and their habitats across the province.
The UTRCA said in a statement that “Dog Strangling Vine is an extremely aggressive plant that outcompetes native vegetation, creating a monoculture unsuitable for most wildlife.”
Japanese knotweed is also known to “break through concrete and foundations, create visual barriers along roadsides, and inhibit the growth of native vegetation.”
The conservation authority also said giant hogweed can grow “extremely tall” and is highly toxic to humans who may encounter the plant in flood plains and along riverside trails.
“Most importantly, these species are just really detrimental to native species and to our ecosystem as a whole,” Williamson said. “The cost to manage these three invasive species is staggering. The longer we wait to implement control measures, the greater the impact will be economically and on the environment.”
According to Williamson, the main control measure for these invasive species is the use of herbicides directly onto leaves and into stems, as well as removing seeds by hand and applying herbicide directly onto leaves and into stems. He also said drone technology will be used to map out giant hogweed along the Thames River.
“We will have a really good idea of the giant hogweed population along the Thames River in our watershed by the end of September,” he said. “The timeline to fully eradicate these species is decades. However, if we don’t start somewhere then it’s just going to get further out of hand.”
Williamson added that the UTRCA has been “controlling these three invasive species along with 20 to 23 other different plant species across the watershed over the last 20 to 25 years.”
“It does take a lot of time and energy to manage these invasive plants. This fund just gives us a bit of a boost and helps us fast-track some of that work that we’ve already had planned,” he said. “It’s important to keep our efforts up to manage these species to maintain biodiversity, protect people from injury, and prevent infrastructure damage and reduce property values.”
The UTRCA is encouraging residents to inform their staff of any locations of these invasive species as they continue to build a data set of the “distribution across the watershed.”
“Smart phone applications, such as iNaturalist and EDDMaps, can help identify and log the location of invasive species,” the conservation authority said.
“If you come across it, take a hit on it and a picture, send it in, someone will verify it and then they’ll plot it on a map across the province so that all practitioners will have access to that data,” Williamson added.
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