Tamarisk

[greenjeep]

I came across this and found it very interesting. How can we convincxe groups like SUWA and the Sierra Club that Tamarisk is more of a threat to the Southwest and it's wetlands than all the Jeepers in the world combined!!

"Tamarisk has invaded almost all watercourses and other wetland habitats throughout the Southwest, taking over more than one million acres of wetland."

"From a wildlife point of view, the tamarisk has little value and is usually considered detrimental to native animals. The leaves, twigs and seeds are extremely low in nutrients, and, as a result, very few insects or wildlife will use them. In one study along the lower Colorado River, tamarisk stands supported less than 1% of the winter bird life that would be found in a native plant stand. Because of the tamarisk's ability to eliminate competition and form single-species thickets, wildlife populations have dropped dramatically."

http://www.nps.gov/whsa/tamarisk.htm

 

[RockMonkey]

Don't bother trying. They're not trting to save willife or habitat. That's not what they're about. They want to eliminate your motorized vehicle from the place they want to hike because they don't think you should be able to get there any easier then they can. They are irritated by your noise and dust. It has nothing to do with saving wildlife, habitat, are the environment. If that was truly the goal they would be putting all their resources into eliminating I-15, as it does eleventybillion times more damage then your little off-highway vehicle.

 

[greenjeep]

Unfortunatly you are all too correct!!

 

[TimB]

You ever checked out the before and after pics at Dead Horse Point visitor center? They show the river before Tamarisk and after - pretty dramatic. I heard the University of Colorado or somebody like that has a bug they have been testing that eats only tamarisk - the enviro nazi's won't let them release it because it's not native. Evidently it is native where Tamarisk originally comes from though. This link seems to indicate they are going to release it though:
http://forestry.about.com/b/a/191033.htm

 

[Rick B]

Yeah, Tammies suck. I remember when you could actually see the river. You can thank the Corps of Engineers for the Tamarisk invasion. It wasn't supposed to be able to get past Lake Powell. Here's another little tibit for you, the average mature Tamarisk tree consumes approximately 25 gallons of water per day, imagine how much more water would be in the river if they were gone.

I'm not convinced that releasing another non-native species (insects) to try to correct the screw up of releasing the first one is a good idea. There are just too many variables that can't be forseen. All the experts said the Tamarisk was completely controllable 40 years ago & we've all seen how wrong they were.

 

[greenjeep]

Here's another little tibit for you, the average mature Tamarisk tree consumes approximately 25 gallons of water per day, imagine how much more water would be in the river if they were gone.

I had heard 10 gallons a day, But according to the NPS site it's ALOT more.

"Tamarisk can usually out-compete native plants for water. A single, large tamarisk can transpire up to 300 gallons of water per day. In many areas where watercourses are small or intermittent and tamarisk has taken hold, it can severely limit the available water, or even dry up a water source."

 

[UtahFire]

I came across this and found it very interesting. How can we convincxe groups like SUWA and the Sierra Club that Tamarisk is more of a threat to the Southwest and it's wetlands than all the Jeepers in the world combined!!

http://www.nps.gov/whsa/tamarisk.htm

SUWA is not about protecting the environment. They are about collecting donations from people who rarely if ever visit the outdoors. Natural forces such as tamarisk (not native), fire, earthquakes and flash floods cause more "damage" (errossion) to the environment than off-road vehicles will ever do.

The problem is that most people don't really spend any time in the back country and are either uninformed, misinformed or don't care.

The thing that is most frustrating to me is that you would think that the thousands of people who register off-road vehicles would have more political influence than they do.

Join an access group.

www.sharetrails.org
www.usaall.org

 

[Herzog]

The thing that is most frustrating to me is that you would think that the thousands of people who register off-road vehicles would have more political influence than they do.

Join an access group.

www.sharetrails.org
www.usaall.org

I agree. I wish everybody had it in them to join up, or atleast write some letters to politicians.

Another thing that makes me wonder is all the commercials you see for Jeeps, hummers, ford suv's, etc... out filming their advertisements for their vehicles on the public lands that are (or near) areas that are under fire for closure! Do they give back and help fight the battle? Probably not, BUT THEY SHOULD!

 

[Houndoc]

The insect release does carry risk. Any "non-native" release can cause problems. But at the same time with or with out human help, species move and migrate. 100 years ago moose and mountain goats, along with wild turkey, pheasants etc where not native to Utah.

 

[greenjeep]

I have heard talk about releasing the insects before, but that article makes it sound like they already have in many places. It would be interestig to see the results of it.

 

[TimB]

Maybe you guys will wind up with the same bug splattered windshield I get in the summer.

 

[Houndoc]

Maybe you guys will wind up with the same bug splattered windshield I get in the summer.

Splating bugs is one sure sign of spring.....

As for the overall wisdom of the bug release, I think it should probably work fine. Alot has been learned over the last number of years in regards to invasive species and more care taken. Unexpected problems might arise, but can they be worse then the problems we already have?

 

[RockMonkey]

Splating bugs is one sure sign of spring.....

As for the overall wisdom of the bug release, I think it should probably work fine. Alot has been learned over the last number of years in regards to invasive species and more care taken. Unexpected problems might arise, but can they be worse then the problems we already have?

We might have to send in a bird to eat the bugs. Of course then we have to send in a cat to eat the birds. And then a dog to eat the cats, and so on... I think you might end up with a crocodile infested river. I'm fine with that but I bet most people would prefer the tamarisk. It's only going to take one eaten baby to get everyone all anti-crocodile.

 

[Rick B]

The insect release does carry risk. Any "non-native" release can cause problems. But at the same time with or with out human help, species move and migrate. 100 years ago moose and mountain goats, along with wild turkey, pheasants etc where not native to Utah.

Yeah, but species don't migrate from the Nile River in Egypt to the Colorado River in Utah naturally. BTW pheasants are another species that is not native to North America, they were imported from China about 150 years ago, everything else you mentioned is at least a native species of this continent and could've migrated here.

 

[Rick B]

Maybe you guys will wind up with the same bug splattered windshield I get in the summer.

We already have far more than our fair share of bugs here, espically along the rivers.

 

[Houndoc]

Yeah, but species don't migrate from the Nile River in Egypt to the Colorado River in Utah naturally. BTW pheasants are another species that is not native to North America, they were imported from China about 150 years ago, everything else you mentioned is at least a native species of this continent and could've migrated here.

Moose did indeed come on there own into Utah, then had help spreading into more areas.

A reality is that with "Globalization", as it gets called, alot of species are showing up in places the really don't (or didn't) belong. One of the reasons the invasive species can cause so much problem is natural predators (odd to think of trees as having predators, but that exactly what the inscects are) and diseases that help limit the population in its 'homeland' are usually missing.

Introducing those predators can help limit the population of the invasive species. The only risk then becomes what happens if the insect, in this case, is out of its natural home. So long as bats and birds will still eat them and they truly do not eat other plants, risk should be low.

I say let the bugs out!!

 

[TimB]

Yeah, I say turn em loose too. The tami's suck - they have taken more routes from us than enviro-nazi's have. Example: There used to be a mining road from Kane creek that went out through Hatch Canyon and connected to the Looking Glass Rock Road - try driving that now. True there are rock falls on it, but you can't even drive near the rock blockage.