Purple Loosestrife Patrol 2005

As most of you have noted, the Purple Loosestrife (PL) is nearing full bloom around the shoreline of the Main Lakes. Tomorrow we will begin hand pulling and GPS mapping every plant we encounter. The GIS map generated in 2005 can then be quantitatively compared to the 2004 GIS map to determine the effectiveness of our control efforts. Why would we go through all this backbreaking labor to get rid of a plant that quite frankly looks very attractive? We agree, PL is a beautiful plant, but nobody wants to eat it and it doesn't get along with its neighbors. When PL colonizes a lake shoreline, it spreads quickly outcompeteing and displacing native vegetation. If it were just a matter of replacing one species with another, it would be no big deal. The problem, most of the life forms that depended on the displaced native vegetation are also lost. This list starts down at the microscopic level with microbes and goes all the way up the ecosystem to insects, fish (what do fish eat???), birds and even mammals like beavers and muskrats.
If the PL were left unchecked, it would dominate the CL shoreline, not only degrading the current vital shoreline habitat quality, but also leaving the lakes extremely vulnerable to erosion if the monotypical PL were to fall prey to a rapid parasite infestation or disease. Summit Laboratory is managing the lakes to maximize ecological stability in part by aggressively battling exotics that pose a threat to the ecological balance. Our goal in PL control is not to keep all PL out of Canadian Lakes forever, but to keep it at bay until native vegetation and insects/animals catch up with it through predation and competition.
If you have PL on your shoreline, we will be pulling it in the next two weeks. Though we love our CL volunteers, we ask that you not pull it, as it is critical to our evaluation that all plant locations be mapped prior to pulling. The quantified evaluation of our control efforts will be included in our annual end of season Canadian Lakes Aquatic Management Report that will be available on the CL website in late 2005.