Python Pete, the beagle being trained to hunt burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) in the Florida Everglades, is the star of this funny audio piece from NPR's All Things Considered. Here's hoping Pete makes it through training and become a full-fledged snake hunter. Interested readers may also want to check out this other ISW post about Python Pete.
Thanks to Val C. for sending in the link.
Fed up with burgeoning populations of American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) in British Columbia, scientist Stan Orchard is taking action. According to this report from CBC News, Orchard will be employing what he calls the "removal technique" - "you simply keep removing them and removing them until your numbers drop off to zero." Good luck Stan! Interested ISW readers may also want to check out this related article from the Goldstream News Gazette.
According to this report from The Island Packet, the death of red bay trees (Persea bobonia) on South Carolina's Hilton Head Island may not have been due to drought, as was previously thought. Researchers are now investigating the invasion of the Asian ambrosia beetle (Xylosandrus crassiusculus) as the root cause of the dieoffs. The beetles, which have been in nearby Georgia since at least 2002 (though this page notes that the original introduction in South Carolina in the mid-1970s), damage the trees and leave behind a nasty fungal infection to boot.
Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News posted about a new review from the EPA, titled "The Economic Impacts of Aquatic Invasive Species: A Review of the Literature." (.pdf)It is an interesting review of economic impact studies, including the two big ones from the OTA (federal Office of Technology Assessment, 1993) and Pimentel et al. (2000).
China View is reporting that most of Hainan Province, an island in southern China, has been invaded by a species of coconut leaf beetle (Brontispa longissima) native to Indonesia. First found in 2002, the leaf beetle attacks the foliage of many different palm species, but apparently has a preference for the coconut palm, one of the chief species on the island. Officials are concerned that they could be in danger of losing every palm in the province.
My electronic field guide to "Invasive Plants in Winter" has finally gone beta, so to speak, over at the efgKeys website. It features invasives from the New England region, though those of you from other temperate parts of North America are sure to see some familiar species. To check it out, head over to the site and choose it from the pull-down menu in Step 1. The Java-based picture key is the coolest, but the software also serves up the key in several other flavors, like HTML and PDF. The best part about this is that all I have to do is set up a spreadsheet and some images, and the software, developed by the excellent EFG Research Group at UMass Boston, does all the hard work.
P.S. - The software is currently operating at port 8080...some firewalls automatically block this, so you might have to fiddle with your system to access the site.
The Yuma Sun is reporting that parts of Arizona are now infested with Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii). The dense populations are found mostly along roadsides, and while this itself may not make a huge impact on native plant diversity, the fact that they could lead to massive wildfires could. The fuel load where there is Sahara mustard is much higher than normal, and officials are concerned that a carelessly tossed cigarette butt or match will lead to big problems in Yuma County this season.
Interested readers may also want to check out this article from the Las Vegas Sun about the "Mustard Busters" in Nevada.
