Every now and then I run across a book, a website or a movie that deserve comment. On this page I will discuss what impresses me, or what I’d caution you to avoid. But I tend to be more focussed on the positive, so you’re not likely to see many pans here. Of course, I don’t tend to focus on the contemporary, so you’re not likely to see reviews of current media…very often. For instance, my favorite Icelandic Saga is Thidrandi Whom the Goddesses Slew. Get my drift?
THE INVASION
As I work on my many summertime chores I look for ways to improve my knowledge of science, so I can share what I know with the fifth-graders I teach. Around school I’m known as the Science Guy, but it’s really a misperception. I was trained in Art! I didn’t really learn much about Science until I was asked to attend some Science seminars at Western Washington University (WWU), to represent my school. Another misperception: I thought it was a two week course, and then I’d be done. Nope. It involved monthly meetings for the next five years, plus summertime training sessions and much more. It was perhaps the most valuable training I’ve had as a teacher. This was the North Cascades and Olympics Science Partnership, NCOSP, funded by grants which have since expired.
At any rate, as I fight off nettles, clover, grass and plantain in my new vegetable gardens, I have to research the plants I’m dealing with. So this year I found a new book to get excited about that I’m sure I can work into my gardening and my education.
The book is Invasive Species in the Pacific Northwest, edited by P. D. Boersma, S. H Reichard, & A. N. Van Buren (copyright 2006, University of Washington Press). In 285 colorful and informative pages, the book presents the most invasive species confronting the northwest environment, categorized by environment. For instance, there are sections on Freshwater Plants, Terrestrial Plants, Marine Plants, various vertebrates in various environments, invertebrates, and so on and so on.
The editors include dangerous species that may have once been discovered here, but which have since been eradicated. Kudzu, for example, has been discovered and eradicated around Portland, Vancouver and a large chunk of South Western Oregon. But even though it hasn’t been found elsewhere within the region, kudzu is included. A wise precaution, I believe, since I traveled through the Southeast and saw vast forests draped with the vine.
There were surprises for me in this book. I knew about Scotch Broom, Ivy and Butterfly Bush, but I hadn’t really considered my house cats as invasive species. But the statistics quoted in this book are alarming: several hundred million birds and about a billion small mammals fall to cats every year across the US. The author of this entry, Ginger A. Rebstock, cites the example of one cat in rural Wisconsin that killed 1,690 animals in 18 months.
Included in each entry is a description of the species and its range, its impact on native species and ecological communities, methods for control or management of the pest, plus its life history and the history of its invasiveness.
Armed with this information, a landowner like me can take action to control or eradicate non-native species…if they want to. I don’t think we’ll be getting rid of our two cats, although one is probably going to a new home soon. But I did decide to yank up the fennel I planted this spring. Just in time–not very many roots had escaped the sod pot I planted it in. I’m still trying to decide what to do about a couple of species of ivy growing around the place.
Seaweeds, mussels, cheatgrass, Giant Hogweed, diseases, vertebrates, invertebrates, they’re in the book. The one invasive species the editors seem to have overlooked is humankind. The editors define an invasive species as “a non-native organism that causes harm to native habitats or species.” The way most of us act, myself included, humans probably ought to be on their list.
