INVASIVE SPECIES NEWS
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Read about Feral Hogs in Nebraska in Crop Watch
Pictured above:Feral hog (Sus scrofa) (credit:Sam Wilson)
Researchers recently found an insect in north Georgia that has never before been reported in the Western Hemisphere — and its  arrival could be both a blessing and a curse.
Some might celebrate the arrival of the kudzu-munching bug, which could help control the invasive vine that drapes much of the South. However, the bug also feasts on valuable crops like soybeans and other legumes.
photo:AP Photo/UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
This morning wildlife officials announced zebra mussels have been found in Milford Lake. Jason Goeckler, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks aquatic nuisance species coordinator, confirmed the invasive species was found in the 16,200 acre lake near Junction City. They were first discovered Monday when a boater found several attached to his boat as he pulled it from the water for the season. A follow-up check by Goeckler and other biologists found three more in the lake. |
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In April 2006, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission confirmed the presence of Zebra mussels in Lake Offutt. This was the first confirmed reproducing population of Zebra mussels in the state of Nebraska. In September 2008 and April 2009, the lake was treated. Since then, no veligers or live adult mussels have been observed in the lake. The real test will com over the next couple of years, though.
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Lee Ardern, 26, a British citizen was taken into custody by the Brazilian police in the Rio de Janeiro international  airport, Wednesday night, after customs randomly checked his luggage and found out that he was carrying about 900 live bird-eating spiders of four different species, which he was trying to smuggle out of Brazil.
The Asian Longhorned Beetle is of particular concern, Guenther said, because it has a taste for every species of maple. Generally found attacking Norway Maples in urban areas, the Asian Longhorned has been found in forested areas as well, said Guenther. It wiped out 15,000 maples in the Worcester, Mass., area, he said, just 45 miles south of the Vermont border.
When Gov. David Paterson's proposal to close the Richard E. Reynolds Game Farm in Ithaca was stopped last year by a restraining order funded by sportsmen's groups, the DEC proposes an alternative draft plan to extend the pheasant stocking program for the next decade.
The DEC annually spends $750,000 to raise and release pheasants on public land for hunters. The plaintiffs claim that these farm-reared birds have limited survival skills and represent a non-native species. Studies consistently show that if shooters do not kill the animals immediately, the birds succumb to harsh weather, get eaten by predators or starve.
A plan to pull 5 million pounds of unwanted carp from a Utah lake each year — one of the largest such attempts in the country — got initial backing Thursday from a federal wildlife agency.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the program that began as a small-scale, state-funded experiment last year should be expanded in the coming years in the hopes of saving an endangered fish called the June sucker. |
