Our land, our water, our heritage

Today we start a series about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which turns 50 on September 3. Northeast Region Chief of Realty, Joe McCauley, starts off our series with his take on why the fund is so important to our country.

In 1964, the Congress and President Lyndon Johnson performed a great service to the American people when they established the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Land, water, and conservation: simple terms that, when combined, speak directly to who we are as a people.

We have not always been as vigilant as we should be to conserve our nation’s natural resources, as evidenced by the mass clearcutting of eastern forests in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the dust bowl era of the 1930s. But even if we have to play catch-up, time after time we show, through laws like the Land and Water Conservation Act, that we do care about our land and water, and the wild things that depend on them.

My job is to oversee the purchase of lands for national wildlife refuges in the 13 northeast states using the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Reflecting back on the work of our current and former land protection staff, it is gratifying to see the amazing results of our efforts, in partnership with thousands of landowners who have helped leave a lasting legacy for all Americans.

The iconic Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, home to Lake Drummond, one of only two natural lakes in Virginia. The refuge provides unique fishing and boating on Lake Drummond, annual hunting opportunities and habitat for various species of mammals, birds and butterflies. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has conserved nearly 47,000 acres of this environmentally and biologically important 110,000-acre refuge.

Over 50 national wildlife refuges in our northeast states were established or have grown because of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.  With these funds, more than 160,000 acres in the densely-populated northeast are now permanently protected as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Without the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the fate of these valuable fish and wildlife habitats would be in jeopardy. These lands and waters not only support hundreds of migratory bird species, and many threatened and endangered species of fish, wildlife and plants, but are also available for recreation and education, making these purchases a wise investment in our future.

We have many “greats” in our region: Great Swamp, home to the first Wilderness Area designated on Department of the Interior lands; Great Meadows, serving the urban and suburban population of Boston; and Great Dismal Swamp, our region’s largest refuge at over 100,000 acres, once surveyed by George Washington. History plays an important role in many refuges as evidenced by native American names such as Massasoit, Missisquoi, and Rappahannock. We honor conservation heroes like Rachel Carson, Congressman Silvio O. Conte and Senator John H. Chafee, who said if he was reincarnated, he wanted to come back as a Fish and Wildlife Service employee! We would have loved to have had him in the ranks.

Since 1956, the fund has helped support our wildlife refuges, parks and historic sites; conserved our forests, rivers, lakes and wildlife habitat; and provided access to recreation, hunting and fishing for current and future generations.

If you have visited our 50+ refuges that have lands purchased with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, you know first-hand how important these funds are. You may have watched your child catch his or her first fish, or learned the skill of hunting from your grandfather. You may have gone on a field trip to learn about the fish and wildlife in the place where you live, or seen your first bald eagle diving for a catch. You may have seen tens of thousands of waterfowl take flight at dawn or a lone great blue heron stalking the marshes. If you haven’t, you still can, thanks to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the foresight of our nation’s leaders who made it happen 50 years ago.

Got loosestrife? Now’s the time to check!

Today Katrina Scheiner, biologist at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Sudbury, Mass., shares the refuge’s efforts to control a highly invasive plant, purple loosestrife. In this photo, Katrina is pulling another invasive plant, water chestnut. Photo courtesy of Katrina.

What is purple loosestrife? You’ve probably seen it, and right now it’s in full bloom.

It’s a tall plant with spires of bright purple flowers that grows in wet areas. It’s very pretty, very invasive, and very hard to get rid of.

Purple loosestrife is a tall invasive plant with magenta-colored flowers that adapts to wetland areas. Once established, the plant begins to compete with native plants reducing natural habitats for waterfowl and other species which depend on aquatic environments. Credit: USFWS

Native to Europe, purple loosestrife was introduced to the U.S. in the early 1800s both on purpose, as a medicinal herb, and accidentally by way of contaminated ballast water on ships. It didn’t take long before loosestrife infested the eastern seaboard, and now it’s has spread through almost all of the U.S.

Purple loosestrife is remarkably difficult to remove for a number of reasons:

• Each mature adult plant is capable of producing tens of thousands of seeds;
• Its woody roots allow it to regenerate (so even after all your hard work, it might come back) and are difficult to pull up;
• It grows in wet areas, so mowing is not always an option; and
• Burning is not effective and may even damage native plants.

So how do we control this noxious weed? Many conservation organizations now use biological control.

Six different European insect species appear to be the most effective. They have been carefully studied to make sure that they don’t become an invasive problem themselves. They are host-specific, which means that they feed and reproduce solely on loosestrife.

An adult Galerucella beetle. Credit: Katrina Scheiner, USFWS

Two of the most successful insects are the Galerucella calmariensis and Galerucella pusilla beetles. The adults and their larvae feed on the stems and leaves, stripping the plant of its foliage and reducing its ability to flower and set seed.

Larva on the purple loosestrife. Credit: Katrina Scheiner, USFWS

After obtaining permission from the state environmental conservation department to release beetles, organizations can purchase beetles from a supplier. If there is an existing beetle population, they can bolster the wild populations by raising beetles in a rearing facility. Raising your own beetles can engage local conservation partners, volunteers and even youth groups.

Partnering with the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge of the Eastern Massachusetts Complex ran a beetle rearing facility for the second year in a row this past spring.

“Beetle rearing facility” may sound high-tech, but we’re just creating a mock wetland environment. Plastic kiddie pools provide the water, and potted loosestrife plants provide tasty food for our beetles. We dig up loosestrife root balls in early spring and plant them in pots in the pools and let them grow until they’re tall and leafy enough to support beetles. If your facility is in a publicly accessible spot (we housed ours at Assabet River refuge’s visitor center), having signs or other outreach materials lets visitors know why you are actively growing an invasive species!

Removing mesh nets, which protect beetles, to release the beetles from the loosestrife. Credit: Katrina Scheiner, USWFS

After the plants are big enough, we slip fine mesh nets over them, supported by tomato cages or bamboo poles, and we collect wild beetles from local wetlands and add them to our netted pots. The nets keep the beetles in and predators out. Birds, amphibians and other insects all find Galerucella quite tasty, and we want as many of our beetle babies to survive to adulthood as possible.

Note the sign that we used to mark our plants. Credit: Katrina Scheiner, USWFS

After a little over a month of careful monitoring, the new generation of adults is ready for release! We grew 50 pots of loosestrife in our 2013 facility and estimate that we reared between 25,000 and 50,000 new adults. While that sounds huge, several thousand beetles are released for each infested acre.

Are you interested in starting your own beetle rearing facility? Right now is a great time to get started! Loosestrife is in full bloom, so now you can mark ideal sites to collect rootstock for your facility.

You collect the roots in early spring, when all that’s left are the dead sticks of the previous year’s growth. Flag each plant now, and collecting the roots in the spring will be a breeze!

Galerucella eggs. Credit: Katrina Scheiner, USWFS

Want to learn more? Visit our watershed blog or contact Amber Carr at amber_carr@fws.gov. Also be sure to check our Neponset River Watershed Association’s Flickr for hundreds of really great photos from their beetle raising efforts and all of their wonderful volunteers! You can also check out a similar effort led by our West Virginia Field Office.