“An armor-plated alien invader is eating its way through wildlife in Britain’s waterways”

So reads The Daily Telegraph this week. Who said that environmental journalism can be dull?

The invader in question is the American Signal Crayfish (pictured), described as a six inch long killing machine and voracious predator that has already annihilated the native White Claw species, and now threatens to completely overwhelm many fragile aquatic eco-systems.

The problems started during the 1970’s when Signal crayfish bread in farms for the restaurant trade managed to escape. So successful have they been, with their lack of natural predators, rapid breeding rate, and willingness to eat absolutely everything including plants, insects, fish, snails, detritus and their own young, that they have quickly grown into an aquatic army of almost plague proportions.

River banks, already under pressure from flooding (and interest rates - sorry), are beginning to collapse as the crayfish burrow up to three feet into the banks, laying more than 250 eggs at once. At the same time, the fact that absolutely everything is on the Signal’s menu means that all other species effectively face the firing squad when the Signal crayfish arrives, either by land or water - the Signal can walk for several miles on dry land in search of new killing zones.

This all sounds nasty enough, but what surprised me even more is just how large the problem of species invasion has become. The Guardian has a short slide-show of foreign invaders, and introduced-species.co.uk is currently tracking 91 different invasive species and their impacts on native eco-systems.

What can we do about this? Not very much it seems. Every time mankind tries to manipulate our environment we usually seem to make a huge mess. Scientists are currently considering plans to breed large numbers of sterile male crayfish, releasing them into the world to upset breeding rates - probably not a bad plan, although adding even more of the monsters to the population does appear risky in the short term.

As usual, the problem comes down to ourselves, the original invasive species. One day we might find a way to stop making these mistakes, but until then we’ll just have to live with the consequences of our good intentions. At least crayfish taste good.

Image credit: david.nikonvscannon at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Which is why I was impressed to learn about Stetson University’s Native Plant Initiative.

I confess I’d never even heard about Stetson University when I came across a DeLand newspaper article about the Garden Club of DeLand’s Home and Garden Tour, which features a tour of Stetson University’s new Vera Lea Rinker Native Plant Garden. The acre-plus garden features more than 80 different types of trees native to Florida, as well as hundreds of native shrubs, flowers, ferns, grasses and palms.

While the garden alone is a nice project, Stetson has gone much further to promote native plant life. Its Native Plant Initiative is unique, as far as I know: under the program, Stetson aims to allow only native flora on its 174-acre campus. Little by little, the school is getting rid of all its non-indigenous grasses, shrubs, flowers and trees and replacing them with real Floridian plant life.

“Florida has more endangered ecosystems than any other state,” the university’s Website states. “Exotic plants, both invasive and non-invasive, have negatively impacted more than 1.7 million acres of Florida. A campus landscape of native plant species reinforces our commitment to environmental responsibility by departing from the often-detrimental landscape practices occurring throughout our state. This departure implies that we, as a university, attribute an inherent worth to natural ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain. ”

Going native also means the university needs to use fewer pesticides and fertilizers, and can reduce its greenery-related water consumption … both of which are certainly welcome benefits to the environment (and probably the school’s bottom line as well).

For any other Florida gardeners interested in going the same route as Stetson, the university provides a wealth of links to helpful resources about native plants, natural resources and species conservation. With spring in the air and my backyard calling, I know I’ll be checking out those links more soon.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) this week released new climate maps showing that Burmese pythons, an invasive species of snake now comfortably at home in the Everglades, could extend their range to as much as a third of the continental U.S. by 2100 as the climate warms. 

While there’s no guarantee the pythons will find the types of food and shelter they like farther north, the temperatures across not only all of Florida — but much of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and North and South Carolina as well, along with parts of California, Arizona and New Mexico — will likely be toasty enough for the snakes by the end of this century, USGS researchers say.

“Wildlife managers are concerned that these snakes, which can grow to over 20 feet long and more than 250 pounds, pose a danger to state- and federally listed threatened and endangered species as well as to humans,” said Bob Reed, a USGS wildlife biologist who helped develop the maps. “Several endangered species have already been found in the snakes’ stomachs. Pythons could have even more significant environmental and economic consequences if they were to spread from Florida to other states.”