Next week, Grays Harbor residents will have opportunities to learn about invasive species, whether through webinars, a weed walk, bingo and trivia nights, or a weed pull.
At the request of the Washington State Invasive Species Council, Gov. Bob Ferguson proclaimed Feb. 23-27 as Washington Invasive Species Awareness Week, which coincides with National Invasive Species Week.
This is the second year that Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Control Board has participated in Invasive Species Awareness Week. The schedule of events includes returning favorites of trivia, which Danika Davis, the Grays Harbor noxious weed coordinator, said was a hit last year, and bingo.
Trivia and bingo are a good way for us to get information out there without it being intimidating or overwhelming, said Davis.
“We’re going to take over a couple of rounds, and in exchange, we are supplying the prizes,” Davis said.
Bingo will be held at Aberdeen’s Mount Olympus Brewery and Oyhut’s Corks and Taps on Monday, Feb. 23 and Tuesday, Feb. 24, respectively, and trivia night at Bandana Brewing in McCleary is on Saturday, Feb. 28.
A new activity is movie night on Friday, Feb. 27 at the Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Control office at the WSU building at the Grays Harbor Fairgrounds.
“The movie night thing was something that we didn’t quite have together last year, and I’m really excited to be able to do that this year,” said Davis. “I thought it would be a unique way to do outreach and [it’s] a very family-oriented activity.”
Movie night will feature videos highlighting different types of invasive species and how organizations are tackling their removal.
Another new activity is a weed walk at Westport on Feb. 25. The Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Control Board is treating an area that is filled with Scotch broom by the lighthouse, and their crew frequently fields questions from people asking what they are doing.
“I thought that there might be some good community interest because of how many people interact with us,” Davis said.
Closing out the week on Saturday, Feb. 28 is a weed pull of English ivy at Lake Sylvia State Park during the morning; for the weed pull, the Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Control Board is teaming up with the Grays Harbor Stream Team.
An outcome from this week of education events is an awareness around invasive species.
“This is how you get an effective early detection rapid response system,” Davis said. “People can’t report things if they don’t know what they need to report or how to report these things. This is just a big push for increasing awareness so people can make those reports and be on the lookout.”
Davis organizes invasive species into two categories: species that are already in the area and species that, when they do arrive, have the potential to be problematic. Species on the latter list are zebra mussels and spotted lanternfly.
“Spotted lanternfly, I would say, is a big one on the list that’s going to be pretty detrimental when it gets introduced to Washington,” said Davis. “And a lot of these [species], it’s only a matter of time.”
Spotted lanternfly is an insect that is considered a plant hopper because they will hop to move around, similar to grasshoppers. Their source of food is sap, and their food source are many plant species, such as hops, grapes, stone fruits, fruit trees and hardwood trees. Spotted lanternfly was found in Pennsylvania in 2014 and has now been found in 18 states. The Washington State Department of Agriculture reports that “interceptions of dead [spotted lanternfly] specimens have taken place in Oregon and California during regulatory inspections. WSDA has responded to a number of reports in Washington that have all turned out to be negative. Should it become established in Washington, spotted lanternfly could threaten many Washington iconic crops and result in costly quarantines and increased pesticide use to manage the pest.”
Building awareness of invasive species also includes educating the public of the vectors by which invasive species spread, whether through the water, on vehicles, or transporting of material, such as firewood. In Grays Harbor County, the river is a significant vector, said Davis.
“That is actually why we have a huge Brazilian elodea issue in the Chehalis River and that’s really impactful to that ecosystem,” Davis said.
The source of the Brazilian elodea is Plummer Lake in Thurston County, and the likely vector: someone dumping out their aquarium into the lake. Since its sighting in the Chehalis River in 1998, “it has now infested basically the whole waterway,” Davis said, and she is pursuing a grant to treat Brazilian elodea in Grays Harbor County.
Brazilian elodea overwhelms native aquatic plants by forming dense mats, which can also interfere with people being able to swim, fish or waterski in a given area. This invasive plant also affects young salmon by restricting their migration downstream.
In addition to the events hosted by the Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Control Board, the Washington Invasive Species Council is hosting free webinars. Visit https://invasivespecies.wa.gov/projects/invasive-species-awareness-week/ to attend.
