Wicked Invasives; Inconvenient Issues

Final results 31 March 2008
Would you add to or plant in your garden a plant bred (hybridized) to be "deer proof" as long as it was not invasive? (Votes so far: 53 Poll closed )

64% YES; 11% NO; 18% MAYBE; 5% DO NOT KNOW

Updated polling (3-26-08)
hybridized (transgenic, non-invasive, deer resistant) hosta
62% YES; 12% NO; 20% MAYBE; 5% DO NOT KNOW

Would the same small polling sample be in favor of transgenic food?
Is there some concern that perhaps the new hosta species or cultivar might not serve as a food source for local fauna and thereby displace species whose presence might support or enhance diversity?

As I watch in amazement the results the hybrid deer-proof Hosta poll (Invasive Notes, as of March 23rd, 2008, 54% would plant this creation, 24% might, and only 25% would not plant this plant), I notice the wicked inconvenience of a wicked problem showing through the information thus far. Given whom I thought my readership might be this information comes as a surprise. My expectations were that the respondents would be against the idea but that is not what I am seeing. I would expect that if I had used the word transgenic Hosta, perhaps the wave of support would be muted. I may try that wording next.

I shared my results with Dr. Tallamy, Professor and Chair Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, 250 Townsend Hall, Department of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology
University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716-2160, who wrote to me about his response to the poll. “I was afraid of that when I saw the question. People have bought into the idea that aliens are undesirable only because of their invasiveness. If you say it is not invasive, then (they reason) there is no reason not to plant it. How many talks have we attended where big names stand up there and tell the audience exactly that. And that, of course, generates all the arguments about whether a plant is invasive, or maybe it's just a little invasive, etc. We are still a long way from convincing people that the plants in their yards have an ecological job to do, regardless of whether they are invasive or not.”

I wrote back the following:
“Please read this link: http://www.vlrc.org/articles/138.html . As I try to get funding or spending authority for invasive species efforts this view point or way of thinking is what we face. Similar opinion may be found from other trade association I should suspect. I could get the license for a transgenic Hosta with no problem and actually be paid enough money to work full time on invasive species issues, but of course am horrified that I would be known not as Mr. Invasive but as the guy who introduced the Kill-deer or Eco-system Killer Hosta. I am trying to identify sources of funding so that I could spend my days working on invasive species issues as I already spend most of my free time and some of my working time each week working on invasive species issues one way or another.”

Dr. Tallamy’s one line question (“What generates such extraordinary and baseless paranoia?”) got me thinking, and I wrote back as follows: “Here is my personal explanation of the "what". From my non-scientific back-ground layman's perspective, we have a societal failure to understand the basic tenant of the scientific method. We have forgotten the root of the word science - scire “to know”: sciens, scientes "knowing". Further, we have as a people replaced religious traditional belief systems with a new religion which we call science. We assume that this new religion will answer every question with an absolute answer, forgetting that science presents a hypothesis and, then, attempts to prove over time and through many trials or experiments the validity of the hypothesis. If enough scientific research seems to get the same answer, we have a theory which over time will stand up to repeated inquiry or fall as more information (science) comes to light. Thus ,when one researcher offers a contrarian view, we, the modern body politic, assume that the majority of scientist are wrong because, as in a religious belief system, values must be or are absolute. The very idea that a theory must be tested and retested and perhaps, even to be found wanting, is anathema to modern society which has demonstrated a reluctance to wait for answers.

This lead us to the world of partisan politics and verbal warfare much like the European wars of the 16th & 17th centuries and some of our current challenges around the world today. We confuse religion and science; we are unwilling to wait for answers and uncomfortable with and uneasy with the outcome when our new religion does not rule precisely and exactly at any given time on any given issue. Instead we as a people wait for ex cathedra rulings to be handed down by our new priests of science, who never asked for such an ordination.

Several ideas seem to surround specific issues within the invasive species conversation. Property rights, Judeo-Christian-Islamic temporally linear thinking, the dynamic collision between short term need versus long term need, are among some of the abstract forces guiding the invasive species conversation. These meta-issues created the setting for a story under the guise of news such as the one I just wrote about: Invasive Earmark Reporting from NPR. They operate in one way or another below the surface of any given discussion; they are meta-issues. They conceptually define at an abstract level, one’s belief system and one’s perspective on the issue at hand. Belief system values are absolute. The very idea that a theory must be tested and retested is anathema to the body politic today which has demonstrated its unwillingness to wait for answers. It our compulsion to have it all now, that under-lays our decision making process. It is our culture which both demands an action now based on a axiomatic truth, and inspires us to seek the truth through inquiry which provide the setting for our conversations on invasive species and our personal decisions.

Invasive earmark reporting from NPR

With a certain amount of amazement, I heard a broadcast from NPR which paired up earmarks for Asian long horned beetle funding in Illinois, with a fake prison museum project. While the story does address the problems of our present appropriation mess, it does a disservice to the invasive species challenges. The suggestion that is left in the listener’s ear is that this is a waste of money. I recognize that there are those who would dispute the extent of the impact of invasive species, but I think NPR has done a poor job of researching this issue in its story. The writers saw beetle and figured it would resonant with listeners as an inconsequential and wasteful issue, helping to make their point, and I suppose sales. I thought I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and had gotten the wrong station and missed whatever point they were making. [image above from APHIS: http://www.invasive.org/images/768x512/1124042.jpg]

As an uncompensated but interested party, I would like to take some time to explain the damage done by this unwanted guest to the forests and eco-systems of the United States in the hope that NPR’s paid staff will do some back ground information gathering the next time they see the words: exotic alien, invasive, beetle or species. As Secretary of the National Invasive Species Council Advisory Committee, I can personally assure the NPR reporters that a call to the NISC staff would have given them all the information needed to assess the impact of the Asian long horned beetle. Thus armed, the reporters could have found another earmark to attack. [Tree dying: image to the left from: Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources - Forestry Archive ]

Scientific name: Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky); Common names: Asian long-horned beetle, starry sky beetle. Anoplophora glabripennis is native to Asia and was introduced to the US around 1996. The beetle most likely arrived accidentally in cargo from Asia.[1] Currently it is destroying hardwood tress in ALB infestations have been found in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Toronto, Canada. “In July 2006, the quarantine in Illinois was lifted since no more ALB beetles have been found in the area. In order to eradicate this pest, quarantines have been established around infested areas in New York, New Jersey and Illinois in the United States, as well as in Toronto, Canada, where beetles or their damage have been found.”[2] “If the Asian long horned beetle escaped and infested the all urban areas of the lower 48 states, the estimated national impact would be a loss of 34.9% of total canopy cover, 30.3% tree mortality (1.2 billion trees) and a value loss of $669 billion. (Nowak et al 2001)”[3]

It is a true pest and a significant problem which needs to be addressed with a focused, on the ground, local eradication effort before the cost of control is out of control. The 300,000 dollars is a small price to pay to work on the eradication of this pest. It would be wonderful if the White House would submit a request to Congress for an Invasive Species Detection and Eradication program. The likelihood, currently, of that happening is next to zero, so we are dependent on a few Congressmen seeing the damage in their district and directing funds to control the problem before we all have to share in the costs. It is so easy to label a politician with the earmark tag before we actually understand the project. While there maybe funding that seems worthless except to or for the recipient, this is funding that benefits all. I will note that I have not yet found the exact use of this money and will apologize profusely if someone can show me that the money was not going to the eradication, education or research of this invasive species and/or the damage it causes.

There is a National Invasive Species Council which needs funding so that it can truly do its mandated work. I could use your help in letting Congress know that we have a tool to begin the war, a war already here in the US which we are loosing. There are many species which could be controlled or eliminated with early detection and rapid response, but with out proper funding the problem grows until we can no longer have any hope of actually doing anything significant to mitigate the environmental impact on our eco-systems’ diversity.

Please send me any information as to the specifics of the "earmark" ALB funding.

[1] USDA NAL http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/animals/asianbeetle.shtml
[2] http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/infestation/index.html
[3] USDA Forest Service http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/syracuse/Data/Nation/data_list_alb.htm

Now for something completely different

I used to host a radio program in Washington, D. C. We featured conversations on native bees and responsible conservation and sustainable landscaping. Unfortunately, we spent so much time thinking about how fun the show was to do, that we forgot to line up sponsors, and in the end had to drop the show because of the expense of talking about our environment and interviewing guests with different points of view, instead of making money.

I have been thinking about resurrecting the show in some format and along comes NPR's contest. If I could figure out how to upload, I would share with you my first attempt. Meanwhile, over on the left in green, is what I hope is a connection for you to explore whether you are quite ready for prime time.