The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest has revealed it's latest maps and details about locations of invasive plants within the forest.
Forest botanist Marjory Brzeskiewicz says the report is sent out every year, giving information on new sites where invasive plants are located.
She says part of the new information is a webmap with geographic information system technology pinpointing where people have found new plant infestations along with locations for all the invasive plant sites in the Forest.
"...it should be useful for anyone who owns land in or near the national forest or if they're interested in a certain spot, they can go to this map, zoom in and find out what invasive plants may be around this location and find out what kinds of treatments have happened there. If they find something new we're always interested in that. If they find something, please contact us...."
High priority areas include the Moquah barrens, a rare, globally imperiled ecosystem in Bayfield County. She says they want to prevent the spread of open-land invasive plants such as spotted knapweed and leafy spurge. Brzeskiewicz says the Forest is in very early stages of the plant invasion...
"....most of our weed sites are very small,like the size of your living room and that's great because then we can do simple methods like hand pulling to pull up garlic mustard, or whatever. If we can get to it early, we can keep it from spreading...we have a few large sites, but most of them are very small...."
Brzeskiewicz says prevention is the best way to stop the spread of invasives. She says by keeping things clean it is preventative. She says early detection leads to quicker eradication. The website and information is on the Chequamegon-Nicolet website and we have a linkhere
