As our program continues to grow, we are continually looking to improve volunteer experience and data collection. We’ve made a few much-needed changes to our Invasives Strike Force (ISF) and Blockbuster survey programs for 2018. Probably the most significant change is that Blockbuster and ISF will no longer be separate programs but combined into separate levels of the same survey program. For our experienced volunteers, we hope these changes will allow you to step up to a new level while new volunteers have the opportunity to start with more easily identified species. Our three ISF surveys this year include the following:

As some of you may know, we have been working towards obtaining an invasives detection dog to be part of our Invasives Strike Force. With their incredible sense of smell, detection dogs have been able to find emerald ash borer eggs in piles of woodchips, invasive plant seeds in the soil, and animal scat that is weeks old.  Using detection dogs in conservation is the cutting edge of research, and we are hoping to launch a pilot program this year, the first of its kind in the Northeast.  We have even found the perfect dog!  Her name is Willow.  

Willow, a black Labrador retriever, is being trained at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School to search for invasive species – and she is the perfect fit for our Trail Family. Help us cover the costs to bring Willow home and allow the Trail Conference’s Invasive Species Detection Program be the first of its kind in the Northeast.

We need to raise $10,500 to successfully launch this program. And thanks to a challenge grant from Paul and Joan Zofnass, your donation today will help get us there even faster. Every gift to the Conservation Detection Dog Fund will be matched at 50 cents on the dollar. So if you give $100, your gift automatically turns into $150.

Honor your favorite furry hiking companion, past or present, in support of launching this cutting-edge detection program. Your gift will help us eliminate even more invasives and preserve our trail lands. Donate to our Conservation Detection Dog Fund, and support Willow today!

Callery pear stinks.  Credit: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org

With spring comes flowers; tiny red flowers on red maples, yellow forsythia blooms which grace the edges of at least one lot on every suburban street in the Northeast, and innumerable crocuses, daffodils, and tulips.  Among all of blooms, you might expect to find a plethora of smells that will welcome you to enjoy the entire sensory experience spring has to offer.  That is, until you find yourself downwind of one of the most commonly planted ornamental trees.  Bradford pear, a variety of Callery pear, blooms in April and early May and emits a smell to rival the rankest of second-rate fish markets.  Despite its ability to tolerate a wide range of conditions, it can’t seem to hold itself together very long and when it encounters wind and ice storms, it's branches split and contort.  Its fruit, inedible to humans, is loved by birds which spread the seeds along roadsides and in old fields ensuring our spring hikes through infested areas will remind us of week-old sushi and other unpleasant odors for years to come.

Callery pear sticks out like a sore thumb in the wild this time of year. Credit: Richard Gardner, UMES, Bugwood.org

Spotted Lanternfly, a new invasive insect, is making gardeners and farmers nervous throughout the country. Credit: Lawrence Barringer, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org

We are currently looking for volunteers in New York to help monitor Spotted Lanternfly by putting up survey traps on tree-of-heaven stands this spring and monitoring the traps in the fall. 

Oftentimes invasive species management can be seen as all doom and gloom, that the scary plant/fish/fungus/insect is coming to destroy your forest/yard/lake/home/livelihood and the world will never be the same.  Sometimes these causes of concern do not pan out and the predictions of ecological devastation can be exaggerated.  Sometimes, they are not.

One we really hope is an exaggeration is the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula).  Native to China, Vietnam, and India, it primarily feeds on tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) but ravishes apples, walnuts, grapes, stonefruit, hops, and just about every native hardwood we have.

It was first discovered in Pennsylvania in 2014 and has since spread to New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.  A single, dead individual was recently found in New York, but they are expected to continue their spread this year and we want to be ready to find them.  As with all invasives, by monitoring the spread we are better able to jump on and control new infestations.

Spotted Lanternfly Trap Monitors will have to attend a half-day training on

Saturday May 12 1:00 - 3:00. 

Those interested in volunteering for this program should send an email to [email protected].

Pink Lady Slipper - a native orchid Image Credit: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org 

The Invasives Program is also looking for skilled plant-ID volunteers to monitor populations of rare and endangered plants along the Appalachian Trail.  The Appalachian Trail is getting more traffic than ever and the effects of invasive species and climate change are threatening these isolated populations.   

A critical part of preserving the trail experience and stewarding our biodiversity is monitoring and maintaining rare and endangered plant populations along the trail. Since these plants are not commonly seen, it takes a keen and experienced eye to pick them out of the landscape.  Those interested in volunteering for this program should sign up for the half-day training below.

May 12 10:00-12:00 - Mahwah, NJ