native species

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Executive Orders on Invasive Species

As of January 20, 2017 we have a new administration in the White House, and with that has come a slew of executive orders. For better or worse, U.S. Presidents have the authority to issue orders that direct the policies and procedures of the agencies that make up the Federal government. Such orders have the same effect as federal laws. Thankfully, the U.S. Constitution sets up a system of checks and balances that keep one branch of government from exercising too much power over the others. In this way, executive orders can be challenged and, if necessary, overturned.

Of course, I don’t intend for this to be a political debate. There are plenty of other places out there that can take you down that rabbit hole. This is simply an introduction to invasive species and their run-ins with executive power. As evidence has mounted against invasive species, demonstrating the threat they can pose to human health and safety as well as to the economic well being of the nation, both state and federal governments have created laws and issued orders concerning them. Examples of such legislation include the Federal Noxious Weed Act of 1974 (which was superseded in 2000 by the Plant Protection Act) and the National Invasive Species Act (which deals specifically with ballast water management). Legislation such as this directs the actions of state and federal agencies in an effort to minimize the introduction and spread of invasive species and reduce the harm they may be having.

Executive Order 13112, issued by President Bill Clinton on February 3, 1999, gave further direction to Federal agencies in the nation’s ongoing battle against invasive species. One of its main directives was to create the National Invasive Species Council which, among other things, would be responsible for developing a National Invasive Species Management Plan.

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The order begins by defining a few terms, including “alien species” (“any species…that is not native to that ecosystem”), “introduction” (“the intentional or unintentional escape, release, dissemination, or placement of a species into an ecosystem as a result of human activity”), “invasive species” (“an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health”), and “native species” (“a species that, other than as a result of an introduction, historically occurred or currently occurs in that ecosystem”).

Section 2 of the order describes the duties of Federal agencies “whose actions may affect the status of invasive species.” These include monitoring invasive species, preventing their introduction, controlling them in a “cost-effective and environmentally sound manner,” restoring native species, conducting research on invasive species, and promoting public awareness about the issue.

Section 3 establishes the National Invasive Species Council, and Section 4 describes its duties. The Secretaries of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce are assigned as Co-Chairs of the council, and several other agencies are listed as council members. The council is directed to “oversee the implementation of this order” and, among other things, “prepare and issue a national Invasive Species Management Plan.”

Section 5 describes what the management plan should include and when it should be completed. The plan will include “performance-oriented goals and objectives and specific measures of success for Federal agency efforts concerning invasive species,” and should also provide a “science-based process to evaluate risks associated with introduction and spread of invasive species.” The Council was also directed to “assess the effectiveness of this order no less than once each 5 years” after its issuance.

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Seventeen years and ten months after this order was issued, President Barack Obama issued an order that amended Executive Order 13112 and directed “actions to continue coordinated Federal prevention and control efforts related to invasive species.” It maintained the National Invasive Species Council while also expanding its membership and updating its duties. It also emphasized the impacts that invasive species can have on human health, specifically calling out “those species that are vectors, reservoirs, and causative agents of disease.” Additionally, it warned that “climate change influences the establishment, spread, and impacts of invasive species,” a subject that wasn’t addressed in the original order, and it encouraged making greater use of “technological innovation,” which had advanced considerably in seventeen years.

Collaboration appears to be a major theme of Obama’s amended order. In a couple different sections, “open data” is advised, as well as a call for Federal agencies to “develop, share, and utilize similar metrics and standards, methodologies, and databases,” and to “facilitate the interoperability of information systems.” The Feds are advised to use “tools such as challenge prizes, citizen science, and crowdsourcing” – a call that encourages more public involvement in the issue.

Both of these orders are worth reading for yourself. Clearly, government agencies take the threat of invasive species seriously. Perhaps in future posts we will explore some of the specific actions that these agencies are taking and the responsibilities they have regarding invasive species.

See Also: Introducing Invasive Species

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Tufty’s Plight, or Saving the U.K.’s Red Squirrel

“There is the great blank area where no red squirrels have returned, and this is where the grey ones first spread and are now permanent inhabitants. Outside it there are plenty of red squirrel populations still, though they have fluctuated, often severely.” — Charles Elton, The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, 1958

Sciurus vulgaris, or the Eurasian red squirrel, is widespread throughout northern Europe and east into Siberia. It is a small squirrel with a chestnut top and a creamy underside that spends much of its time in the tops of trees. Its tail is large and fluffy, and its ears are adorned with prominent tufts of hair. It enjoys a broad range of foods from seeds, fruits, and leaves to fungi, insects, and birds’ eggs. It is beloved in the United Kingdom, where its survival is being threatened by a North American cousin. This cousin, now established in the U.K. for well over a century, looks to increase its range across Europe, with a growing population in Italy and the potential to spread to neighboring countries.

Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) - photo credit: wikimedia commons

Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) – photo credit: wikimedia commons

Sciurus carolinensis, or Eastern gray squirrel, is native to eastern North America but has been introduced to parts of western North America as well as other parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. Its fur is typically dark to pale gray with red tones. It prefers mature forests where food and shelter are abundant; however, it is a highly adaptable species and is common in urban areas and disturbed sites. It shares habitat requirements with the red squirrel, but has the advantages of being larger, stronger, and able to digest acorns.

Gray squirrels were first introduced to the U.K. in 1876. Wealthy collectors were enchanted by them and began releasing them on their estates. The first pair made it to Ireland in 1911. Around this time biologists were becoming concerned by how quickly they were spreading as well as the damage they were doing to young trees and the effect they seemed to be having on red squirrel populations. The U.K. Parliament responded in 1937 by banning the possession and introduction of gray squirrels. In an article published in Science in June 2016, Erik Stokstad writes about this “troubling phenomenon: where gray squirrels established colonies, red squirrels sooner or later vanished.” The current population of red squirrels in the U.K. is estimated at around 140,000, while gray squirrels are thought to number more than 2.5 million.

Why red squirrels vanish when grey squirrels are present is not entirely understood. Competition for food is one factor. Grey squirrels seem to have an advantage over red squirrels in mixed deciduous forests, and according to Schuchert, et al. (Biological Invasions, 2014), after colonization by gray squirrels, red squirrels can become restricted to coniferous forests, which are “less favored by grey squirrels.”

But direct competition alone doesn’t explain the plummeting numbers of reds in the presence of grays. Another explanation was identified in 1981 – grey squirrels were spreading a disease. Several years of experimentation confirmed that red squirrels were dying of squirrelpox – a parapoxvirus that gray squirrels carry but show little or no sign of infection. The virus can spread quickly through a population of red squirrels, leaving them lethargic, malnourished, and an easy target for predators. Stokstad writes, “red squirrels are defenseless…as [they] succumb, gray squirrels quickly take over the habitat.

But not all grey squirrels carry the virus, and there are some regions where the virus isn’t a major problem. Habitat loss and fragmentation due to human development also plays a role in the red squirrel’s decline. Add to that, grey squirrels may be more inclined to live among humans, giving them an advantage over the more reclusive reds.

Efforts have been underway for decades now to reduce, and even eliminate, gray squirrels in the U.K. Tens of thousands of grey squirrels have already been trapped and killed, yet they continue to dominate. Schuchert et al. write, “while culling may decrease grey squirrel population size in the short term, their high dispersal abilities makes re-colonization likely.” Funding for culling programs isn’t always available, and protests from animal rights groups like Animal Aide U.K. and Animal Ethics also have an impact. One area that culling has proved successful is Anglesey, an island off the coast of Wales, where the red squirrel population had once been reduced to just 40 individuals. Schuchert et al. analyzed culling data over a 13 year period and determined that trapping and killing efforts “resulted in the sustained and significant reduction of an established grey squirrel population at a regional landscape scale.”

Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) - photo credit: wikimedia commons

Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) – photo credit: wikimedia commons

Red squirrels may also be experiencing some relief thanks to another threatened mammal. Martes martes, or the European pine marten, is a member of the weasel family and, as Stokstad writes, “a cat-sized predator [that] was nearly exterminated in the 20th century.” Hunting, both for fur and pest control, and habitat loss reduced pine marten numbers dramatically until it received legal protection in 1988. Since then it has started to rebound, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. Anecdotes suggested that pine marten recovery in these areas was resulting in fewer gray squirrels. A study published in Biodiversity and Conservation in March 2014 confirmed that gray squirrel populations in Ireland were at “unusually low density,” and that the increasing numbers of pine martens played a role in that. Gray squirrels move slower and spend more time on the ground compared to red squirrels, making them easier prey for pine martens.

Efforts are now underway to introduce pine martens to other parts of the U.K. where gray squirrel populations are problematic. However, according to Stokstad, “red squirrel advocates worry that the pine marten could be a false hope, promising a free and uncontroversial solution that could threaten funds for culling.”

Let’s remember that the gray squirrel was deliberately introduced to the United Kingdom by humans, and that human activity is one of the main reasons for the grey squirrel’s explosion and the red squirrel’s retreat. Culling is not likely to ever eliminate gray squirrels completely, yet no one wants to see red squirrels go extinct. Altered landscapes can favor certain species over others, so ensuring that there is plenty of favorable habitat available for the red squirrel is one way to aid its survival. The grays may be there to stay, but let’s hope a compromise can be found so generations to come can benefit from sharing space with the red squirrel (and perhaps the gray squirrel,too).

Tufty Fluffytail, a character developed to help teach kids road safety in the U.K., saves Willy Weasel from getting run over (again).

Red Squirrel Conservation Groups:

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Book Review: The New Wild

What if we were to look at invasive species with fresh eyes? Traditionally we have viewed them as interlopers hellbent on environmental destruction, but have we considered the good they can do? Should our efforts to eradicate them be tempered – eliminating them when it seems absolutely necessary, but accepting them when they are doing some good; welcoming them when they have something to offer. What does their presence mean anyway? What does it say about the ecosystems they inhabit and about us? Invasive species are convenient scapegoats, taking the blame for much of the ecological devastation that we started in the first place. Is that justified?

This is, essentially, the theme of The New Wild, a book by Fred Pearce that urges us to reconsider the ways we think, talk, and act towards invasive species. More than that, it is about dumping the idea that pristine nature (a mythological concept anyway, and one that is not all that useful) is the only true wild, and that nature invaded by alien species is a lesser thing that needs to be fixed. The truth is, nature is and always has been in a constant state of flux, and it is unconcerned about the provenance of the species that compose it. As Pearce puts it, if it’s doing “a useful job,” “it matters not a jot where a species comes from.”

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Invasion biology is a relatively new field of study, stemming from the publishing of Charles Elton’s book, The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, in 1958. For thousands of years, humans have had a hand in moving species of all kinds around the planet, but it was in the latter half of the 20th century that our awareness of the ecological damage that some of these species can do really developed. Since then we have made great efforts to remove such species and put things back the way we found them. The zeal with which we have done so hasn’t always been justified or effective, and throughout what at times has felt like an all out war against foreigners, a profound sense of animosity and suspicion towards anything non-native has taken root in our psyche.

Pearce hopes to mitigate these feelings and get us to reconsider some of our actions. To start with, he calls into question the distinction between aliens and natives: “A broad time horizon shows there is no such thing as a native species. All lodgings are temporary and all ecosystems in a constant flux, the victims of circumstance and geological accident.” Also, “many aliens are so well integrated that they are assumed to be native,” and “species come and go so much, as a result of both human and natural forces, that conventional hard distinctions about what belongs where have long been all but meaningless.”

Instead of judging a species by its provenance, “we should treat species on their merits and learn a little tolerance and respect for foreigners.” While “being alien can sometimes be problematic,” it can equally result in the renewal of “flagging ecosystems, creating new space for natives and providing ecosystem services.” Seeing that those services are in place is what should really matter, and “[ecological services] are best done by the species on hand that do it best.” After all, nature is not a system of “preordained perfection,” but instead “a workable mishmash of species, constantly reorganized by the throw of the dice.”

In his criticisms of the field of invasion biology, Pearce investigates some of the “constantly recycled ‘facts’ about alien species.” He finds many of the claims to be unfounded and oft-repeated statistics to be blatant misrepresentations of the original studies. He concludes that “some of the most widely used statistics in the canon of invasion biology do not stand up.” To support his point, he offers several examples of how alien species have added to the biodiversity in certain ecosystems and he shares stories that “show how we instinctively blame aliens for ecological problems that may have a lot more to do with our own treatment of nature.”

Immigrant Killers by Carolyn King, one of many books making a case for the war on alien species.

Immigrant Killers by Carolyn King, one of many books published in the past few decades that makes the case for waging war on alien species.

In so many words, Pearce’s stance is that the classic “aliens are bad, and natives are good” approach is outdated – “nature doesn’t care about conservationists’ artificial divide between urban and rural or between native and alien species,” which means that our perception of aliens should shift from being “part of the problem to part of the solution.” Abandoned farmlands, secondary forests, recolonized waste places, urban sprawl, and other novel ecosystems across the globe offer explicit examples of species from all backgrounds coming together to create functional habitats. This is the new wild.

Pearce is not advocating that we throw in the towel and let invasive species run rampant: “It would be foolish to claim that alien species never do any harm or that efforts to uproot them are always doomed to fail.” His support for the new wild is “not a call to let it rip.” Instead, “conservation in the twenty-first century requires an open-minded assessment of what might work – not a sullen retreat into blinkered orthodoxy.” So, rather than try to stop the flux of nature (an act that is decidedly “anti-nature”), let’s see where it goes, alien species and all; and when we do decide to beat back invasives and intervene “to preserve what we like,” we should be mindful that nature may be “traveling in a different direction.” As Pearce writes, “the new wild is flourishing, and it will do better if we allow it to have its head.”

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Obviously this is a controversial topic, but the ideas in this book are worth exploring further. Pearce’s notes are extensive, and I intend to read through many of his resources. Stay tuned for more posts. Meanwhile, you can listen to an interview with Pearce on this episode of Talking Plants. For a more critical veiw of Pearce’s book, check out these reviews by Los Angeles Review of Books and The EEB & Flow.