Invasive species workshop hosted in Juneau

The Alaska Invasive Species Workshop Oct. 27-29 in Juneau will highlight invasive species management and issues in Southeast Alaska and around the state.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service will host the workshop at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall in downtown Juneau.

 The invasive plant, elodea, is shown in Badger Slough.
 U.S. Forest Service photo by Trish Wurtz

Keynote speaker John Hudson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife in Juneau, will offer a public lecture beforehand, at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Mendenhall Valley Library. His talk is titled “Juneau’s Green Invasion: Non-Native Plants That Threaten Local Ecosystems.”

The workshop will address Southeast concerns, including cruise ship ballast water and management of garlic mustard, knotweed and Didemnum vexillum, a marine tunicate that has shown up in Sitka.

Several presentations will focus on elodea, a fast-growing aquatic plant that can reduce the quality of fish habitat and create difficulties for recreational boaters and for pilots landing on lakes. Discovering elodea at Lake Hood this past summer was a special concern, said workshop coordinator Gino Graziano, since the dense mats of elodea presented navigation challenges to pilots at the busy floatplane base. Planes also can easily transport the aquatic plant to other lakes.

Other presentations will cover developing an integrated strategy for the prevention and management of invasive species across international and domestic boundaries, the Alaska invasive weeds identification app, and other prevention and management efforts
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The agenda and registration information are at www.alaskainvasives.org. The workshop was organized by the Alaska Committee for Noxious and Invasive Plant Management and the Alaska Invasive Species Group, informal groups composed of agencies and organizations statewide. For more information, contact the Anchorage Extension office at 907-786-6300 or Graziano at 907-786-6315 or gagraziano@alaska.edu.