The Stealthy Threat of Noxious Weeds

Medusahead. Black Henbane. Dyer’s woad. Ventenata. Yellow starthistle. Heavy metal bands, or noxious weeds found in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem?

We’re all pretty familiar with the common weeds that make their appearance in our yards and hometowns. Despite their status, I’m still a fan of dandelions. But what makes a noxious weed, a noxious weed? 

It’s a surprising issue found here in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Conservation topics like the politics of grizzly bears or the increase of wildfires get top billing in the media, while noxious weeds are more of an under-the-radar threat. 

Well, we’re here to change that and share why you should be aware of noxious weeds in Greater Yellowstone and how you can help prevent their spread. Spoiler alert: humans are of course, the top spreaders of noxious weed seeds. 

Joining us today is Bethany Allen, wildlife habitat director at Park County Environmental Council in Livingston, Montana. In her work, Bethany partnered with Montana State University and the Park County Cooperative Management Area to lead county-wide monitoring and education—work that resulted in the development of the statewide Montana Noxious Weed Monitoring Toolbox now housed with the Montana Department of Agriculture. We’ll discuss how noxious weeds are dramatically affecting both terrestrial and aquatic habitats, why noxious weeds like cheatgrass are so hard to stop from spreading, and her top three species she would make disappear with her magic wand. 

We’ll try to stay out of the weeds—while talking about weeds!

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the land of 49+ Indigenous Tribes who maintain current and ancestral connections to the lands, waters, wildlife, plants, and more.

Voices of Greater Yellowstone was created by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation nonprofit dedicated to working with people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, now and for future generations.

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Podcast Artwork > Rachel Dunlap Art

Music > Redwood Trail by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)

Thumbnail Photo > Jennifer Strickland/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Noxious weeds, like I mentioned, are having a larger ecological and economic impact, meaning that they are growing thick monocultures. They are changing fire habit. They are, I mean, the aquatic species are changing the way the river flows and temperatures.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Medusa Head, Black Hen Bane, Dyer's Woad, Ventinata, Yellow Star Thistle, Heavy Metal Bands, or Noxious Weeds found in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. We're all pretty familiar with the common weeds that make their appearance in our yards and hometowns. Despite their status, I'm still a fan of dandelions. But what makes a noxious weed a noxious weed? It's a surprising issue found here in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Conservation topics like the politics of grizzly bears or the increase of wildfires get top billing in the media, while noxious weeds are more of an under-the-radar threat. Well, we're here to change that and share with you why you should be aware of noxious weeds in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem and how you can prevent their spread. Spoiler alert, humans are, of course, the top spreaders of noxious weed seeds. Joining us today is Bethany Allen, Wildlife Habitat Director at Park County Environmental Council in Livingston, Montana. In her work, Bethany partnered with Montana State University and the Park County Cooperative Management Area to lead countywide monitoring and education. Work that resulted in the development of the statewide Montana Noxious Weed Monitoring Toolbox, now housed with the Montana Department of Agriculture. We'll discuss how noxious weeds are dramatically affecting both terrestrial and aquatic habitats, why noxious weeds like cheatgrass are so hard to stop from spreading, and her top three species she would make disappear with her magic wand. We'll try to stay above the weeds while talking about weeds. Alright, let's learn more with Bethany. So, Bethany, we're here to talk a lot about invasive weeds in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, but I'd like to start off with your favorite plants. Could you tell me a bit about a day out admiring some of your favorite flowers, bushes, or trees? And does that influence why you work in this space?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Well, that is a really big question for a person who loves plants and spends a lot of my time outdoors looking and uh doing a lot of field research is um a lot of my experience out here in Montana and in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Um but I am from South Georgia, so you might notice a little accent here and there, sometimes stronger with certain words. But my um favorite tree is like a specific tree, an old growth live oak in my grandparents' property. Um, so I've started loving plants from really early on, and then that love grew as I finished school and started doing research here in Montana. And I would say for Montana, there are a couple of really cool plants. Um, like Hal's Pussy Toes is a really cool, um, genetically interesting species. It's all female. They are a clone species, uh, so like similar to aspen, so just very adaptable, um, high range from um alpine habitats to Utah high desert systems. Um, and then another one that's really cool is monument plant, uh, which is uh related to a gentian. Um and it blooms once every 20 to 80 years, and it's just this really bushy, like it looks like um yeah, just a plant that hasn't flowered yet that you see um around low-lying, and then it shoots up this giant stalk with beautiful flowers and seeds and dies. Um, and I just think that's just such an interesting um species. But thinking about uh an experience though with plants that has shaped what has shaped my work and where my career has gone, um, I would say is a field research in the Flathead National Forest. It was an old growth research project where most of my research has been about the impact of management action. So I was looking at the impact of thinning on a Ponderosa Dugfur forest. Uh, and there was one that had been thinned multiple times throughout, you know, 100 years of management in an area only a quarter mile away, same pre-sip aspect, everything the same, just hadn't been treated. And so I probably spent a full month out in that field site every day, 12 hour days in the in these different forest systems. So learning a lot about just what it is to be in an old growth forest, treated or untreated, beautiful and amazing. But there were some very clear differences in those two forested areas, just right like normal observation, like undercover was not there in the thinned forest. Um, there were a lot more invasive species, uh, or there were invasive species. There weren't any invasive species in the unmanaged forest. And so in our uh, or in wildlife observations were another really clear thing that you didn't need to take data on, like the birds and the bugs. We saw two bears running through the site when we were in the untreated forest, and those just that just didn't happen when we were in the thinned forest. But then the data showed that species diversity tenfold in the untreated forest, soil moisture content, soil water holding capacity, stark differences from the thinned um forest. I remember presenting the data to the forest supervisor, them going over it. Now, this isn't like the full analysis of this is just people's snapshots and conversations that I feel like have shaped where I go. They um looked at the data and said, like, wow, the trees in the thinned-treated forest are so much healthier. And that was not, that wasn't my experience, and it wasn't how I was told to look at the forest as we were researching data. It's the entire system, it's not the tree alone. And they were right, the the trees, old growth ponderosa and dug fur trees, had way less um beetle damage, they were straighter, and all that means is that they were had more bored feet available, and that through the lens of that manager, was that that those trees are better. That tree is better, and that was so shocking to me to not look at the whole system, and that obviously the untreated forest had the diversity, the ability to hold water well above the other forest, and it had no invasive species. Um, like yes, that the trees were had way more beetle and they were crooked, and some were missing their tops, but they weren't unhealthy. The system felt very healthy. Like maybe that one tree wasn't the healthiest tree, but um, and that's something that to me translates into as I started working in grasslands and working in invasive species more of you know, it really matters the management goal, and it really matters the way we look at the system. We we often get focused on the tree or on the invasive species, but we're missing a lot of context if we don't look at the whole system. Um, and so that was just something that was just one field experiment that just led to me continuing this work and um moving into yeah, to different systems other than forest um ecosystems.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, what a great place to to be surprised and always be learning something new. Um well, we're really here to to dive in about weeds. And weeds, when I just say weeds, can be such a broad term, and we, you know, hear about weeds in all sorts of just in our backyard versus you know what we'll dive more into with noxious weeds, but let's start at the beginning. Is there a specific definition that makes a weed a weed?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

You've probably seen those like memes um talking about like uh a weed is just a plant in the wrong place, and I I'm a weed too, or whatever. But I mean, they're right, a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place, and that is defined by humans. We define whether we want it there or we don't. But if we go beyond just um like weeds like dandelions, um, which are non-native, but they aren't considered invasive, and that's where we start, we hit these different tiers of weeds. So I would say there are lots of weedy native species, um, and there are weedy non-native species, and then we get into there are invasive species that are non-native weeds that have ecological and economic, negative ecological and economic impacts. That's what defines an invasive weed over just a regular weed. And then to the next step is noxious invasive weed, which um is a legal, that's our legal determination at uh the state and federal level of um that these have shown to have the biggest ecological and economic impact that we're gonna rally resources and regulation um to manage in a different level than um these other species.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, let's dive a little more into what's the difference then between like, okay, let's say a dandelion, which you said is defined as a weed, but doesn't really wreak any havoc on the landscape around it, um, versus a noxious weed.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

In my mind, especially here in the West, where there's so much open land, so very different when I talk about weeds in Georgia. People are like, I don't know what you what's the problem? Um, but here I think there's just a different dependence on that open landscape, and it's not managed like lawns, and that's the other, like they're not all managed at high manicured landscaping. So um invasive our invasive species are typically obnoxious weeds, like I mentioned, are having a larger ecological and economic impact, meaning that they are growing thick monocultures. They are changing fire habit. They are, I mean, the aquatic species are changing the the way the river flows and temperatures of aquatic weed species. So, you know, they have a different impact than dandelions. Dandelions are they're a nuisance to landscape systems. Um fair enough. That's where that just starts to be become a different, a different system, which I mean, those can have huge economic impacts. So I don't want to discourage someone who's running a botanical garden and they're having to put money and resources into managing dandelions or other weedy species. It just doesn't have the same um larger impacts that I think some of the um invasive noxious weeds that we've identified um through the federal and state levels.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Right. Yeah, I haven't heard many, you know, landowners and agency folk worried about dandelions. I can have it on the ecosystem, but there are definitely some that we're pretty worried about. Um could you clarify when we talk about noxious weeds, and you can go like non when we talk about non-native, you know, it's like it's it's regional, you know, we bring, we've brought things in from outside the country. Um for the most part, are noxious weeds non-native species?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

If if it's made it on that legal list of noxious weeds, it is a non-native species. And um there are lots of, like we mentioned, lots of types of weeds, and there are obnoxious weeds, is a funny thing people like to say, um, that are native. Like um one that people really surprisingly don't like here, a native um showy milkweed is so important for marnark butterflies, but it's poisonous to livestock and it grows really aggressive. And people like tell me all the time that that's a weed, and I'm like, oh that's such a great flower. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Totally. I planted a showy milkweed in my backyard, and it was kind of when I had just moved in and just went to, if you live in Bozeman, I went to the native section at Cashman's and was like, well, this is pretty. I like monarchs. I also did have one monarch show up, which was like the pinnacles, I think, of my existence. Um, but it runs wild, and I had to transplant it to a little bit more of a contained area because I was just like, whoops, but I can see where people are all of a sudden overwhelmed by it. But yeah, it was still all worth it when that one single monarch butterfly showed up.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

And so, like thinking of the non-native and native aspect, the the native species have the ability and the the natural enemies is like the best way I can say it, but the microbes and the insects that have all adapted to help be in the system where no one overruns anything. And the non-native species don't have that adaptive quality here, they which is why they have the niche. They have they typically have really high seeding rates, they have impressive root systems, they have different times of seeding that can compete like like cheat grass. You know, it seeds first time the sun comes out. It germinates in fall, so it's ready. As soon as the snow clears and it gets an inch of sun, it is growing and it is almost producing seeds. And so it drops seeds before any of our plants have even started to green. Um, and so they just have these adaptive qualities to outcompete our non-native species and then don't have the the natural competitive um or you know, the competition as our other species.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

So I first got interested in this topic when one of my colleagues, Sarah Harris, um, who worked on um the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment, which is a publication that the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has put out looking at, you know, climate resiliency in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. And so she did a presentation, and one of the things that struck me was hearing from agency folk, ranchers, farmers, landowners who are struggling with this noxious weed issue and you know, ranking it in in their minds, and this was you know a lot of people talking about about it being one of the greatest threats to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem's integrity. And it but it's not something that's really talked about, you know, where we hear a lot more about the water issues here in the ecosystem. We hear about you know increasing wildfires in the ecosystem, but Noxious Weeds doesn't get a lot of press in the media. So could you start us off by saying why this is such a dire issue out here right now?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Well, just to zoom up one level, in in my mind the greatest risk to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and many is habitat fragmentation. And that's due to lots of reasons, uh, natural like fire and or and unnatural like developments. And invasive species are just another one of those ways that we are fragmenting habitat, and then specifically to me, and I and I'd be curious if if the folks that Sierra interviewed were thinking about invasive annual grasses, because that's what I've seen at the the landscape scale. So not like site for site, every site's got Canada thistle, nap, spotted nap weed, horiolysum, like all of those weeds are everywhere, but at a a large landscape, wildlife migration um systems, um, these invasive annual grasses are wreaking havoc. And we have lots of lived experience down in um southern west, the southwest, um, like Utah area going there uh just recently and looking at how the cheat grass is smothering the sage habitat. Um so it's uh it is definitely a threat, and it's one that isn't there is no silver bullet. Um, and and once this invasive species is here, we really can't remove it, and we haven't had eradication success. Um, there has been especially not for invasive annual grasses.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Um, sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And at small scale, so like Park County, we had eradication success for salt cedar, um, which is a riparian tree, um, but that's at a small scale. Like to remove salt cedar from the state of Montana is gonna be insane. Um and so that's what becomes the issue is like once we've identified it's a problem, we're we're now we're lived, we're uh it's a level of learning to live with it and then managing it to where it's not destructive ecologically and economically. But invasive annual grasses is a is a tricky one because it changes the fire regime.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Um yeah, it's it's scary. And if Noxious Weeds are telling a story about the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, like in this moment in time, what's it saying?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

As an ecologist, I feel like we're taught like the way we describe that storytelling is be they're an indicator species. Um, so there's lots of different indicator species, and invasive invasive noxious weeds are a huge indicator of a disturbed stressed system. Um and that's at different levels, right? Different invasion levels are gonna say different stress levels, and that's not because of one action. It's natural, unnatural. It's because we walked somewhere with a seed on our shoe. It's just the simplest things that start to create disturbance that allow the opportunity for um the pr the native perennial plant to be removed and this new species to be introduced. Um and so it's yeah, it's a it's a simple story, but I think it's one that's just a compounding, maybe a compounding story um of what we're seeing in change in our areas and and um of disturbance and maybe not putting enough back into the land. Um we just focus on pulling out. Um so pulling out the invasive species, pulling out the species we want, um, but thinking about what are we putting back in.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Oh, that's such a good way to put it. I really agree. Um let's dive a little more into how these weeds spread. Um, I think we can talk a little bit about like grasses in particular, but then Maybe is there also like a unique species of weed that just surprises us with how well traveled it is?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Oh, there are so many. Um one thing just thinking about the vector, like how are weeds spreading? They're spreading because of us, um, typically. Wildlife spread them too, but not at the distances and and quantity that we do. Um, roads. Roads are our biggest vector of noxious weeds. Um and so, yeah, the continuous expansion of roads into any system is going to introduce the invasive species. That's why, in my story about the treated forest, the only reason why they're invasive species is because they came on the people who manage the forest. The other forests just didn't have the disturbance and didn't have the vector. So um there are so like seeding rates is one of those adaptation qualities that our noxious weeds all typically have an extremely high amount of seeds that they produce. Some are gonna be adhesive, so like our hound's tongue, that's gonna stick to your dog, and it's gonna stick to the elk and the deer, and it's gonna spread that all. I mean, our forest systems are impacted by hound's tongue a lot because of um it sticking to wildlife and and us as well. Um, and then one impressive um leafy spurge has a really interesting seeding, uh, it explodes. So this it'll it has a little seedpock thing that will explode and send the seed up to 15 feet away, um, which is like a really interesting method. And then it can travel and its risominous roots just one plant up to 15 feet away as well. So that's just another way that they're moving. Um, but we as humans are the main vector. Um, so roads are our cars, willwells of our cars, um, our hiking shoes and our dogs, our boats for aquatic species.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Got it. Yeah, it's usually if there's any issue, you can 99% of the time trace it back to us um as either being the cause or just the amplifier of the issue. Um we we touched on this a little bit um when we were talking about our poor little dandelions, um, probably on the lower end of the of the threat level. But when agencies and um, you know, but just the community in general is prioritizing which weeds to to target or which are the most um uh destructive ones, is there um a scale or like how how are they being ranked in order of severity?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

This is a a good question and one that's a little counterintuitive when I work with landowners to help them think about how do they prioritize what weeds to treat on their lands. It's you're I think initially you want to treat what you think is the worst, which is what you see is the the biggest expansive weeds. So cheat grass, snapweed, Canada thistle, like we see those, and we're like, yeah, those are the problem. We've got to target those. Um, and I kind of touched on it before, but if they're already here at that large quantity, there's not a lot of success in the management. The efficacy goes down because there's just so much seed. The seed bank is there. Um, and that's very hard to manage. And so our initial uh drive to kill the noxious weeds are the ones that are in the highest quantity and the ones that we're seeing the most of. But the state, you know, their priority list focuses on what is the newest invader. So our newest invader is our highest priority species. And so at the state level, that's um yellow star thistle, dyerswoad, common reed, and Medusa head. So those are our four Montana State, and I assume Wyoming would be similar. I'm curious if they have different, I haven't compared. Um and then you know, our our forest has a different list of priority, but they also follow the state as well. So it gets a little complicated in that. And then our county, if I think about like what our focus is, is we're we don't have um Medusa Head, Common Reed, or Yellow Star Thistle, but we have had Dyer's wood, uh, which is actually a really cool that's a conservation success story where um Dyer's wood was found in Paradise Valley um on someone's property, pretty large amount. Um they removed it, and then to continue to monitor, they worked with um, do you know about dogs for conservation?

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Oh, yeah. Working dogs for conservation.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, working dogs for conservation.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

They bring dogs out to sniff out dyers woad um when you can't find it. And so they were able to eradicate dyers woad because it's on that priority one list to remove it where we don't have any more dyer's wood in Park County. So at that scale, we've had eradication. Um, and so our for us, our um ventinata is a priority two at the state, but priority one for Park County because we have only a couple infestations right now, and that we really want to target our education and energy on people knowing how to ID that grass, knowing how to manage it, and and letting us know it's there so they can get resources, financial and um expert resources to help them get on top of that. Another is Purple Loose Strife, which is a riparian um species. We've only seen it in one area a while ago, but we continue to educate on what it looks like. So we people will be able to tell us so we can help them remove it, so it doesn't become a priority two or three species, which means we're just not gonna have success. Um, and so that is really how you you prioritize management. Um, it's what is the newest invader? You want to focus on the thing you can be successful at removing and then move from there. Go down the priority list to get to your highest abundance weed last.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yeah, and and interesting that like it's very much uh like the focus on the newly identified weeds of like, okay, we we know how hard it is to get these under control once they're established. So they immediately go to the top of the list to like we got to try the NYX. Also, Dyer's woode is an amazing name for an invasive plant.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Well, there's the reason why it was brought over from Europe was because the seed pods make this beautiful indigo dye um that people dye their clothes with. Um, and so people were bringing people bringing that over so they could use the plants how they used to in Europe. So yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

It's like cool, but like also keep an eye on it, please.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Like, and then it's there was a um yeah, just uh thinking about how we know we know a lot about these the medicinal uses of molen, medicinal uses of um St. John's wort. And those are those come from Europe, and that's because settlers brought that over and that knowledge, but we're missing the native plant knowledge, that indigenous knowledge that has all of that information about what species are here, and I um you know that's one of those philosophical like what are some of the big issues is that a lot of times when we come to a place we want to bring what's familiar to us and comforting to us, um, and not learning what's what's new here and um and taking on the the system that we joined uh instead of trying to change it.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, a hundred percent. That's such a good point. Okay, Bethany, if you could wave a magic wand, and I'm actually gonna say if you could make three invasive um plant species disappear from the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, what would those three species be?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I mean, I could name the top three invasive annual grasses because I do feel like that is the um a really big issue across a really large amount of land in the west is and is growing. Um, but I know that a lot of like just outside of our area, um Russian napweed is just that traditional tumbleweed, the one, the plant that you see going across the road and building up on the fences. Um, like across the US, um that tumbleweed Russian or a palmer species, they are um wreaking havoc in all sorts of agricultural systems, and they're also developing um chemical resistance. So they're um they're no longer able to be killed um with normal herbicide. They've built up adaptations against these herbicides. And so I would say that that's one. Um and then just on the um, I would say Medusa head and ventinata, and I would leave out cheatgrass, and the reason why, and I think cheatgrass looks like the obvious answer because we see it everywhere, it still has some level of value in um it has forage value, so both for wildlife and livestock, so it is changing the system, but it's something that still has some natural enemy, um, something that can eat it. It's not the most palatable, and it doesn't have the same nutritional content that our perennial native grasses have. But ventinata and medusa head are so high in silica that nothing will eat it. So it won't get grazed. It doesn't have it grows in these thick, dense monocultures. And I think some sheep, they've had sheep graze Medusa head, but I don't think they've had success with ventinata, and it's not good for the sheep. Like it messes up their gums and like it's yeah, so I I feel like those are maybe the the top three that feel like big, big issues across other areas than just ours.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Is there any um specific plant that comes to mind that would be classified as a noxious weed in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem that people may actually like?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah, there are. I mentioned some of the um like medicinal uses, like St. John's wort is um is one that people like I know some folks who who try to connect with landowners who maybe aren't doing herbicides, so they can go out and collect St. John's Wort for um their medicinal use. Um Molin is another one. It's it got removed off the noxious list, but molin is another really common plant that people um know a lot of the benefits of. And um napweed, I mean, we've got lots of napweed honey. If you look at the stores, you can see that people sell napweed honey. Bees love napweed, um uh spotted napweed and diffuse. So um, yeah, I think there are uh folks who see the benefits, and I I think there there are benefits, and that's important for us to to really try to come in our own kind of priority list, and what are what are the real problems about invasive species? Where are they really the most negatively impactful? And I don't believe it's Molin, and I don't believe it's St. John's Word, so spending our our money and energy, and I think there's some level of like herbicide budget we should be considering. Like we don't want to put so much out on everything, but maybe there's certain species we really want to focus on because they feel like they're the worst. Um and I think, yeah, so there's benefits, and that's one we've got to learn, we've gotta learn about, and we've got to watch and um try to understand how we can find some ecological and economic ways that this won't be so destructive, because it's something that we are having to learn to live with at some level.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

How do invasive weeds affect our native pollinators? Mostly I'm thinking of our native bees.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Native pollinators do like napweed, but the way that they negatively impact our pollinator species is as by displacing the native species. A lot of our native pollinators have are specialist to the native species that they have adapted with. And so we've got many pollinator um species that are specialist, so that they don't benefit from the flowers of our invasive species. There are tons of native pollinators that aren't specialists that do benefit, but those aren't the ones that are most sensitive, and those aren't the ones that are at risk. So the ones that are at risk are our specialist um species.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Got it. That's good to know. Well, let's look a little further out. How do noxious weeds affect our local wildlife? And I mean, everything from I think of like our ungulate grazers to maybe something that would surprise us.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Yeah, it's that habitat displacement um for all of those species. So ungulate, um, mule deer specifically. There is um a new study that just came out of the University of Wyoming published in Rangeland Ecology and Management, um, finding that cheat grass and other invasive annual grasses like ventinata and Medusahead are driving mule deer out of that sagebrush habitat. Um, and they're predicting that um unmanaged um areas are gonna drive cheat grass or are that have 10% to 20% of cheatgrass, which there is a new tool, updated tool released by NRCS, uh a wrap modeling tool that shows invasive annual grasses on a screen where you can see. And if you look at Park County or you look at Yellowstone National Park, you can see that there are definitely areas that have above 10 to 20 percent that they're driving mule deer out completely within 20 years of having 10 to 20 percent coverage of cheat grass. And you can clearly see how many of our large intact grasslands already have that percentage of cheat grass. Um and so in that it's driving out our sage grouse. You know, that's one of the big um education pieces that we've been learning about for years is this defend the core concept. It's around sagebrush briome and finding these intact areas that don't have weeds and keeping them healthy, that don't have the invasive annual grasses, and just don't over-graze them, don't develop on them. We've got to keep these intact, and we just manage certain areas that are manageable to keep the core intact instead of trying to create core in an infested area. Um, and then pollinators, um, you know, just pushing out those native, uh rare native plants that they are specialists to, and then even to what folks don't know is native fish spawning habitat. You know, there are aquatic um Eurasian water millfoil. It will change the water temperature, change the flows, it will just displace the ability for um Yellowstone cutthroat to spawn. Um so yeah, be it and all of that because it's also connected, there are impacts that we are even understanding and mentioning when you talk about removing the pollinators, when you talk about removing this fish fish species, when you talk about not having the same level of grazing that these perennial grass systems have adapted to. So when we move mule deer and elk herds out, what what else starts to be lost?

SPEAKER_00 40:27

I'd love to talk a little bit more about, you know, uh aquatic habitats, because yeah, we've been talking a lot about terrestrial, and yeah, when I think of noxious weeds, uh what always comes to mind for me is cheatgrass and these like just expansive landscapes, and all you see is cheatgrass with maybe a sage brush here and there. But can you tell me a little more maybe about a project you've worked on or just that you know of and um just type a little more detail about how it these noxious weeds, you know, affect our trout, affect our riparian habitat, our rivers. You mentioned at the very beginning of the episode that I think you said it can like reverse how change how the river flows. Like, tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Um I have done a lot more work in terrestrial systems, so I am not an expert on our aquatic invasive species, but um there are a lot of those um different species that will grow in the water that will change water temperature, reduce oxygen um for different reasons from different bacteria that they introduce and by smothering out um the upper layer. And then they just create drag in the current. So as you you know, you get a nice river bend that fish are able to have habitat in, it's the same area that's pushing and holding seeds, and so that will just grow and expand and just push out the ability for um different species to thrive. Um, and then what I work more with is terrestrial systems. So in those riparian habitats, um, you know, we mentioned um purple loose drife being on our local list as one we really want to watch out for. Um, but some of our tree species are the most negatively impactful, uh not are, but the evasive tree species. Um, like Russian olive and salt cedar are two that are really common and are we know a lot of negative impacts. A single tree of either species can consume up to 200 gallons of water, um, effectively lowering a water table and drying up a stream or spring completely. And then salt cedar, they're impressive. A lot of these weeds are really impressive, but it has the ability to to concentrate, to gather the salt from the soil and store it and and release it in its leaves. So when it falls on the ground, the top layer of soil is solidified, the water is salinified, and you can't our native plants can't grow, but they can't grow in the salt. And so, yeah, it's wild the impact that happens with salt cedar. And then you, I'm not even, I don't know the impact that has on fish habitat, but it's not good to uh solidify the um water. So those are two of concern and thinking of local projects like projects that we've worked on. We do a salt cedar float every year um here in Park County to monitor the river where we've had salt cedar, where we've had it removed, where we've treated it just to make sure it's not coming back because we've successfully removed salt cedar. And then there have been a couple um large Russian olive removal projects. As well on certain riparian areas. But that gets tricky because there's a there's a trade-off in that that disturbance of ripping trees off of the river's edge as well. So it's just like you've got to find where it's most impactful in a positive way.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Yeah. And I imagine that just re requires a lot of collaboration. And speaking of collaboration, like, do you find that most of the people that you work with in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem are in agreement with how to handle noxious weeds? I mean, everything from, you know, when you bring in an herbicide versus when you're doing more physical remover to bringing in the dogs, help us find the find the plants. Do you do you find that this is, I don't want to say necessarily a uniting issue, but you know, what are you hearing when you're out there on how to handle this?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

There is a huge collaborative effort, especially locally, around the management of invasive species. We have a local cooperative weed management area, which is who I'm doing all of the noxious weed work with. Um so everything is done in partnership, which I think has a lot to do by Park County, specifically is noticed at the state level, and our ability to coordinate with private and public land managers to manage Noxious weeds at the county level. Um and I it's not because everyone agrees on the management of, I think it's because everyone agrees on the problem. And that is something that isn't as common in a lot of we just can't even agree on the problem. So gosh, how in the heck are you gonna figure out what the solutions are? So at least this is something we can agree on the problem. And people are open to the different solutions. Um there are a lot of folks that are super concerned with the amount of herbicide that is being sprayed from helicopters. Um, but on the other side, there are ranchers who are who are seeing major benefits on their grasslands from this usage. So it's it's a very complicated issue. And um it just goes back to that we need to have a common goal. So, like we have a common problem, that helps, but having a common goal feels like what's what's missing. And it's not about trying to find the silver bullet for managing noxious weeds, there's not one. It's really understanding um like, are we where are we trying to eradicate weeds from? Where is it possible? Um, where do we need to restore? Like, is it for sustainability? What does that look like? Um, it's really hard in the face of climate change. If we were, it would be a lot easier to talk about this if we we weren't faced with a rapidly changing system that I think just exacerbates everything. Yeah, I think we're just kind of we're stuck in a in an interesting place. And it does always go to a philosophical spot at some level of how we engage um with these uh compounding issues.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Can you tell me a little bit more about the work that you're doing in the Paradise Valley? Um, and maybe like what your upcoming season's gonna look like. What are what's what are you gonna focus on?

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Well, my role has shifted a lot over um, I started a countywide noxious weed monitoring program with the cooperative weed management area uh here, and it was to develop and test a monitoring protocol and system at the county level to be used at the state level. Um, and so that work looked like yeah, going out with ranchers multiple times a year, uh, multiple ranchers a week, to ID where weeds were at, to talk about their management treatments, to do our surveys, which are you know, just reading data frames, so just percent coverages of all of the different species within your certain area, um, and then monitoring that management action over time. So, like I've did with the forest uh project, you're looking at a treated and untreated one that had their, these were mostly herbicide treatments, um, chemical treatments, and then the ones that didn't have that, but there were also biological treatments as well. Um, and then we've had monitoring on hand pull, mowing, and um one revegetation um site as well. Uh so just helping them understand the impact of their management action while developing out a centralized data storage so we can start to make larger implications through this monitoring data. So, like right now, my data is only three years, which tells us what we know already. What we don't know is 10 years out. What does what does the native forb flowering population come back? Uh so our herbicides are broadleaf specifically targeted. So they will kill anything that is a flowering broadleaf species. So most of my sites show a high efficacy of the herbicide treatment, but they also so that means the noxious weed is lowering in quantity. It is also showing native forbes are also lowering in quantity. That's what I know. It's like working for this, this is also of interest. And in 10 years, I would love to see native species come right back, but we don't know that. And there's new herbicides now that don't just target the broadleaf species, they target the all seeds in the first five inches of the soil. And that is the best efficacy for managing invasive annual grasses, but back to that caveat, it's only us looking at one thing, and that's not the system at the whole. So that's where we see the decline of our native Forbes in that. So we're just curious in what that looks like 10 years out, and so I do look forward um to in a couple years going back to those sites and having another look and seeing if they've rebounded, if there's enough of that native um seed bank to come back even after those heavy herbicide treatments. Uh so we're hopeful, and uh, there are seeing some good um benefits in areas of Wyoming that have been doing a lot more of this type of management.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Speaking of hope, what else gives you hope in this seemingly uphill battle?

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Maybe another philosophical um approach, but uh just hoping that us as humans um can be as adaptive as the plants we're competing with, and that we can learn to put back um into the land in the same intensity that we take out, you know, and that just goes to just living in a different way than we have been. Yeah, that's I feel like that's the the hope is that we can just change our approach um and start learning from all the things that we are seeing in the data and we've been researching for years. I mean, this is uh things people have been talking about uh for a long time or just seeing the evidence in real time of what we've been warned about.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

How can people in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem help reduce the spread of noxious weeds or just learn about noxious weeds more in general?

SPEAKER_01 52:26

There are a lot of good resources. Um, regardless of where you're at in um the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem or even the country, like reach out to your county extension, your local extension. They are gonna be able to tell you about um the noxious weeds. Are any forest management area around you is gonna have those resources? Um as far as like what to do, just remember we are the number one vector. What I teach second graders when I teach them about native plants and invasive species. It's um a Montana campaign is plague, clean, go. And so you have to consider cleaning your hiking boots and your will wells and your boat and your border collie anytime you leave and enter. So both both times when you leave, you want to make sure you check everything, and then when you come back before you head out, you want to make sure to check everything. When you're going, especially into our public lands, those are our are less intensely managed, not our manicured lawns that have the ability to help manage noxious weeds. The reason why they're so widespread is because we have these huge open landscapes that don't we don't have the financial ability to manage at that micro level. So just be careful when you're going out in those wild open spaces.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Sage advice. Bethany, who is your ultimate conservation or science hero?

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Man, that is also a good one. I feel like it changes all the time. I just recently finished a book uh about a woman named Carol Rucdeshell. Uh, she grew up in Georgia in the 1940s and um dedicated her life to protecting Cumberland Island National Seashore and a protected wilderness area there. And I grew up in the the uh mainland town to that island, and I didn't know anything about this, I didn't know anything about wilderness, I didn't know anything about land protections or ecology, and um I've been just really or I really enjoyed that um perspective of someone that I connected with just from growing up in that area and learning a different story. Um, she had to do with the protections of the Chattanooga River, um, and she's still she's 80-something uh right now, and she's still fighting um the park service with different visitor use management plans on Cumberland Island, and I just really inspired by her. But and thinking locally, like in the GYE, there are so many conservation heroes. Um, Herma Albertson Bagley, like the queen of Yellowstone plant ecology. Uh, look her up, like awesome. And then even more local, like Park County, Dorothy Bradley, um Jean Marie. We've got our like new and upcoming, uh, I feel like Wendy Weaver, Michelle Uberagra, like all of these are obviously I'm a supporter of women in conservation, and I'm surrounded by the upcoming new heroes, and it feels really um, you know, I guess that's going to the hopeful side of things, is I'm working with so many amazing people through so many different organizations, through GYC and through our agency partners that are all really trying hard to address some pretty complicated issues in a changing system on top of that's that's just thinking ecologically, on top of the economic pressures, on top of all of these other issues that we face as a society. Uh, and I do feel hopeful um as I learn more and more about uh the amazing work being done.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Well, Bethany, thank you so much for joining us today and just answering all my questions about weeds. I could probably still go on, but um, thank you so much for the important work that you do. Um, and I hope to catch up with you again sometime soon.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for the time.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Thank you again, Bethany, for joining the podcast and sharing your knowledge about noxious weeds and their threat to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. I've placed a few links in the show notes so you can learn more about Noxious Weeds and how you can help stop the spread. While this issue feels like a never-ending uphill battle, together we can make a difference. Voices of Greater Yellowstone is a podcast by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation nonprofit that works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. If you'd like to become a podcast insider, sign up via the link in the show notes and you'll get something special in the mail as a thanks for your support. We appreciate you tuning in month after month to hear the stories and science of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. As always, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.