Breaking down invasive species rules and regulations with Chris Evans

Erin Garrett: 00:07

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment Podcast where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host Erin Garrett.

Amy Lefringhouse: 00:15

And I'm your cohost Amy Lefringhouse.

Erin Garrett: 00:18

And today we are here with Chris Evans, the forestry extension and research specialist with University of Illinois Extension. Chris, welcome back to the Everyday Environment Podcast.

Chris Evans: 00:29

Hey. Thanks for having me back.

Erin Garrett: 00:30

We're really excited to have you back. We've had you on the podcast for a few episodes, but it's been a few seasons. So for our listeners, back in season one, and then before the podcast was Everyday Environment when it was still spotlight on natural resources. If we have some longtime listeners, you'll remember that name. But we always love chatting with you, Chris, and you've helped us unpack invasives from a lot of different angles in past episodes, but also been on to talk about other things on the podcast too with some early spring wildlife.

Erin Garrett: 01:01

So if our listeners want to look back, can check out Chris's previous episodes. But today, we're here to chat about regulations around invasives. So to get started, can you tell us a little bit on why invasive species regulations matter in our listeners' everyday environments?

Chris Evans: 01:21

Sure. No. Happy to do that. And it's been interesting just working on invasive species through extension throughout the years. I do some research on it and other things, and and it's such an important topic that I'm happy that it's in my wheelhouse, I guess, I would say.

Chris Evans: 01:34

But yeah. In terms of, like, why invasive species regulations matter, you know, lot of people don't like necessarily having things regulated and told what they can and can't do. But with invasives, you know, they don't stay put. I mean, that's the whole idea behind an invasive is they move around, they don't necessarily follow property boundaries or anything like that. So any landowner, whether they're a homeowner, whether they're a forested landowner or an agricultural landowner, there certainly is the potential to be impacted by invasive species through no actions of their own.

Chris Evans: 02:09

Whether that comes from an adjoining land or comes in with equipment through utility work or anything like that. Regulations just help slow the spread or help potentially prevent new introductions through identifying the worst invasives and ones that we definitely do not want moving throughout the state, and then providing some restrictions on what can and can't be done with those. There's a lot of different regulation types out there, but in general, they're meant to reduce those negative impacts, especially on folks that, you know, it's not their choice. Right?

Erin Garrett: 02:44

Yeah. And I think it's interesting because when I started, you know, in the field of invasives, just because we call something and consider something to be an invasive species doesn't mean that it's regulated. Right? And so if you're looking for like a list of invasives online depending on where you're located, can find a whole bunch of different, you know, species listed on those, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're regulated. So I think that's an important distinction just for people to recognize is that just because something is invasive, right, doesn't mean it necessarily comes with regulation.

Erin Garrett: 03:21

But we'll get into more of that in a little bit. But that's not something that I guess I realized when I first got into this world. I was like, where is the list? Why isn't there just a list? Like, it should be simple.

Erin Garrett: 03:31

Right? And it's we know it's a lot more complicated than that. Sure.

Amy Lefringhouse: 03:34

And how long, like, just historically has invasives regulation or even, like, weeds, I guess, if you will, been around? I mean, I guess we're an agricultural state, so is that where it started? Or little bit of invasives regulation history?

Chris Evans: 03:50

Yeah. I mean it it it started really with agriculture. Right? So the whole idea behind a noxious weed list. I think the term of like an ecological invader wasn't really a thing until the fifties or sixties.

Chris Evans: 04:02

But the idea of weeds impacting agriculture have been around since the late eighteen hundreds. Right? Sure. Sure. So some of the the noxious weed regulations and the the the regulations around species whether they're they're plants or even pest reggae, you know, impacting agriculture has been around for a long time since the early nineteen hundreds at least.

Chris Evans: 04:22

Right? And so that's kind of where it got started. The the actual ecological invasives, the regulations of those at least in the state of Illinois really kind of started in the nineties or something like that. It was some of the more recent kind of idea behind that. But yeah, we've been regulating weeds in an agricultural context for much longer.

Amy Lefringhouse: 04:43

So in today's landscape view, we've had some recent changes to invasive species regulations here in Illinois, specifically some species that were added to the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act. What are those changes and what do they mean for homeowners and landowners and even the nursery industry?

Chris Evans: 05:07

Sure. So just kind of a historic just going back to the Exotic Weeds Act kind of the way it was previous. Up until last year, anytime there was a change in that regulation whether you wanted to add a species or anything like that, it required, you know, actual legislative change. You know, you had to find a lawmaker to to have a bill and go through that. And that was just a little bit of a clunky process, and so we didn't have a lot of updates.

Chris Evans: 05:35

In fact, the last update was in 2015 when we added species, and before that it was another ten years or so before that where any other species were added. And so last year, the change to the Exotic Weed Act created a system where you didn't have to do that to to add species. The species list of regulated the the list of regulated species was no longer contained within the law. Instead, the law said that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which is the agency, the department that that administers that that rule, that law, it said they shall create a list through an admin process. An admin process is a little different.

Chris Evans: 06:16

Basically, the department creates rules and interprets the law and then publishes those. There's still a public comment period. There's still a judicial review, but it's a little bit more of a streamlined process to go through, you know, the rule making process, a little more streamlined so they can they can be a little more flexible, a little more agile in adding species. So that was all last year, and then this first rule making process for the the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act was was completed this year. And so that's what we're talking about when new species were added.

Chris Evans: 06:54

So in October, I think October 1, it went into effect. And the first thing it did was just backdate all the previously regulated species. And I think there was 20 some or so, 24, 25, I can't remember right now, that were previously in the law. Now they're added to this rule. And then at the same time, the rule added new species, nine new species to the to the list to increase the total.

Chris Evans: 07:22

I think there's somewhere around 35 species now regulated. And so new ones to the list now are species like tree of heaven, garlic mustard, leafy spurge, Sericea lespedeza, Japanese stiltgrass, amur corkree, the swallow -worts, is pale and and black swallow- wort, and then callery pear. Right? So that's the one that was a little bit different in terms of how it's regulated. It gets regulated, so a little bit delayed.

Chris Evans: 07:54

But those are the new ones added, and so that regulation specifically regulates transport, sale, purchase. So any of those species now on the list, you're not allowed to move, you know, parts of those plants around. You're not allowed to buy those plants and plant them. You're not allowed to sell those plants, and so that's really what the exotic weed list enforces. In terms of landowners, the big thing it means is they're going to have a little bit less options in terms of or different options in what they they want to plant.

Chris Evans: 08:24

A couple of those species are known in the, you know, in the horticulture trade, and so they those will no longer be available for landowners to plant. But it also then regulates these species, and so hopefully it will mean that the spread will be a little less, and so they may have to over time not have to deal with these species as much as they would otherwise. In terms of the nursery industry, it does, you know, prevent a couple species from for them from growing them. Right? So they're no longer going to be able to grow a couple of these and and and sell them.

Chris Evans: 08:58

So it does limit the nursery industry a little bit. It's it's something that you know, you try to limit that necessarily. You don't want to unnecessarily limit nursery industry's choices. But this was made you know the with nursery industry kind of fully involved in the whole effort. So it's something that I don't think it was unwanted or surprised you know for them that wasn't sprung upon them.

Amy Lefringhouse: 09:23

Before we get too far, Chris, the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act is just plants. Is that correct? So there's other invasive species that are outside of the plant taxa and they're regulated through other regulations, other laws, other acts as well, right?

Chris Evans: 09:42

Yes. So there's a couple and I know we can talk about them in a bit if you want but there's certainly quarantines that are set up. There's aquatic plant life. There's injurious species. There's different mechanisms for regulating animals and insects and and pathogens.

Chris Evans: 09:57

But the Exotic Weeds Act is specific to to plants and it's primarily terrestrial ecological invasive plants, So that's that's kind of its scope. Agricultural plants, aquatic plants are regulated in kind of different you know manner.

Erin Garrett: 10:14

So you mentioned the Callery Pear is treated differently in this update and it has a bit of a delayed regulation. So why in particular that species, why was it given that deferred timeline? And what does it tell us about kind of how you mentioned that nursery input and and balancing those needs versus the the need to regulate this species?

Chris Evans: 10:36

So all the other species, when this when the rules were published on October 1, the regulations went into effect. So on October 1, you could no longer buy, you know, amur cork tree in in the store. Callery pear, that that regulation was deferred until 01/01/2028. So it's a little over two years of kind of a delay and that was intentionally to give what we call a phase out period. And so basically when you're you're growing woody plants in the horticulture industry to sell, there's you you put them in the ground and it's usually a couple years before they're ready to be sold.

Chris Evans: 11:14

Right? And so the phase out period basically was created to reduce those growers' stock of already planted plants in the ground so they didn't just have to pull them up and throw them away. There's a lot of investment with nursery growers of ahead of time that they're not going to realize that that income for a couple years. And so we just know the idea was nobody wanted to have all these nurseries incur that big of a financial cost of basically throwing away sometimes very significant investment, know, just kind of being enforced upon them. And so the phase out period allowed that to happen.

Chris Evans: 11:53

Right? It allowed them to to get rid of that stock or reduce that stock for the next two years. And then obviously the next two years, nobody would be planting new stock because they knew this they know this regulation's coming into effect. And it, you know, it is difficult balancing, you know, the the economic needs of of an industry like that with ecological needs. And I know that depending on what side you're on, you get a lot of pushback and not everybody's necessarily agrees with that idea.

Chris Evans: 12:20

But I I think it's the right one personally just because callery pears are already fairly widespread. It's something that if it was really really like brand new then maybe you wouldn't have a phase out period because you could really stop it a little better. But this case, I think that the economic impacts would be pretty severe to some nurseries, some private businesses. And so I think it makes sense.

Amy Lefringhouse: 12:44

Back to regulation, I know we talked about the Exotic Weeds Act only kind of like focuses on terrestrial plants. But there are other plant related regulations that look at invasive species laws. We've got the noxious weed law and others. So how do some of these regulations differ from one another? How do they work together to limit the spread?

Chris Evans: 13:09

Sure. So there's three major regulations that regulate plants, invasive plants in Illinois. So there's the Exotic Weeds Act, which we just talked about. And then as you mentioned, the Illinois exotic or noxious weed law. And then there's the Illinois injurious species rule.

Chris Evans: 13:26

And so they've kind of divided up in some ways the the habitats that are impacted in a little way. Then their actual method of regulation is a little different too. As I mentioned, the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act is primarily terrestrial invasive plants of natural systems, and so it is administered by the Department of Natural Resources. So that one is kind of focused on that. So forestry and lands and wildlife and and natural heritage, those are the the groups that you know really kind of have a lot of stake in that law.

Chris Evans: 13:59

And then I think as we already mentioned, it regulates transport and sell and things. The Illinois noxious weed law is administered by the the Department of Agriculture. And so it is primarily agricultural invasives or agricultural weeds and things that impact, know, that sector. And so it not only regulates sale and transport and all that, but it actually has a clause where it regulates possession, which means if you have an infestation or population of a noxious weed on your land, you can be mandated to control that. Right?

Chris Evans: 14:33

So get rid of that population on your land. And then that one that's that's very different. So that doesn't happen with the exotic weeds act. Right? If you have a population of Japanese stilt grass on your land, you're not going to be mandated to control that.

Chris Evans: 14:46

It's but the noxious weed law does. And then it also is kind of a little bit different where it actually is administered by the counties. So even though it's a Department of Agriculture law, the law set up that each county would have a a noxious weed commissioner that can enforce, you know, these regulations as well. So it's a it's a little different that way. The injurious species rule is really a broad rule that's really mainly aimed at aquatic species.

Chris Evans: 15:13

And so it regulates a lot of aquatic animals, a lot of fish, you know, crayfish, things like that, as well as aquatic invasive plants. It is another one of those that does regulate possession, so that's something that you can be mandated to control out of an area. But it's administered by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, but through the division of fisheries, right, because it's aquatics. And so they're all again, they're all a little different and I think the the nice thing about them is that they do kind of divide up these issues and then have the group that is kind of most responsible for those habitats be in the administering agency or division. And so it allows the experts to kind of focus on the invasives that most impact their habitats that they work on.

Amy Lefringhouse: 16:01

I did have a county contact me at one point in time about the noxious weed law and having a plan you know written or together for different weeds that they that folks had found maybe on the roadsides and it was just interesting. Didn't realize. I don't I don't think the county realized either that they really needed a management plan, you know, in place for some of the plans on that list. So we gave them some resources to help them do that. I don't know if you've helped other counties with that Chris before.

Chris Evans: 16:36

I have. And you know I will say that that law is is kind of administered or enforced in a very varying rate across the state. There's some counties that really take it seriously. They have a very active weed commissioner and they have an in-depth management plan to really go for it. Other counties are a little more lax about it.

Chris Evans: 16:58

They may only enforce it when there's a complaint filed or So something like there's a lot of variation on how that is county to county for sure. But yeah, I've helped a few that have had issues and helped them kind of develop those management plans or develop recommendations for controlling a population that they want controlled out of their county.

Erin Garrett: 17:19

Well, and for our listeners too, that was a lot of different regulations, and there's a lot of different species on all of those lists. So we do have on our website a really great resource that lists all of the regulations, kinda gives a summary and lists all those species too. So we'll link that in the show notes as a reference point if you wanna look that up. And that's, I think, really helpful to kinda have it all in all in one spot.

Chris Evans: 17:44

It is. It's hard to keep straight, honestly. There's so many different rules. They all may change. And so, yeah, I I agree.

Chris Evans: 17:49

Having something just laid out, here are the rules. It's helpful to kind of be able to review that and understand, you know, what you can and can't do.

Erin Garrett: 17:58

Alright, Chris. We got a tough question for you next, and we kind of have already chatted about it a little bit. But from the practical standpoint, right, you talked about there's all these grand plans out there, this is how it should be enforced and and put out there to help slow the spread, but how effective are these regulations at preventing new introductions or reducing our existing infestation?

Chris Evans: 18:22

That is a tough question. And I I would say, know, the standard answer is it depends. Right? I hate that answer, but a lot of times it's actually the right answer. And honestly, some of them, know, right now regulating say bush honeysuckle, something like that, it's already found in every county.

Chris Evans: 18:39

It's it's probably found in almost every woodlot. I would I would say in a lot of ways the regulations are not going to be super helpful in terms of actually reducing the spread because it's already met its you know, it's it's kind of ecological potential where it's at. So in some cases, it's more of just having a justification or an acknowledgment or recognition that that species is invasive and a problem. And and so the regulation is more for that and maybe helping to get future funding. So you're say you're tackling a regulated invasive species, then it is actually preventing the spread of those species because, through restricting its sale or transport because it's already very widespread.

Chris Evans: 19:20

So some of these it may simply be almost symbolic. I hate to say it, but that's the way it is. Others it could be extremely helpful. Right? One of the things we try to do, and and I'm sure you all talked a lot about it or will talk a lot about it in the season, is, you know, focus on things like early detection and rapid response.

Chris Evans: 19:39

That's a term that's used a lot with invasive species. They kind of shorten it to EDRR. And the whole idea behind early detection and rapid response is providing some kind of intervention, whether that's regulations or management, really early on in this process of the species invading. Catching it before it's very widespread, before it's very well established. And so that management or or regulations at that point in time really does have the potential to be very very very impactful.

Chris Evans: 20:09

Right? It can it can kind of stop the spread of a species or prevent, you know, future invasions through that that those regulations. And so when we catch them earlier, when we we provide regulations or management really early on, I think they can be extremely helpful. In terms of the species we've added now, there's a couple of them that I think really fit into that that category, and particularly, you know, amur cork tree. And so amarcort tree is a species that has really demonstrated a lot of invasiveness.

Chris Evans: 20:41

It's spreading. It seems to be triggered with, know, disturbance quite a bit. So it has a lot of these characteristics of invasive and it's being demonstrated to be very invasive in a couple like restricted areas in the state, but it is by no means widespread across the state. Right? And so this is one that I think regulating it now will hopefully prevent Amur cork tree from being like the new tree of heaven in twenty years.

Chris Evans: 21:08

And so again, it varies. Sometimes it's symbolic these regulations or sometimes it's just a recognition that can provide you know some some justification moving forward. But other times they're extremely important. Right? And I think that's the that's the reality of regulations.

Erin Garrett: 21:25

Mhmm. I was gonna ask because I wasn't super familiar with the amur cork tree, and I didn't know, like, is it found in Illinois currently? Is it like in a specific location, or is it kind of like haphazardly across the state?

Chris Evans: 21:40

Oh, is. Cork tree is kind of occasionally used ornamental. You see it planted around. And so the places that I've seen it and the places I think we have records in the state for it being invasive, One is the Chicago region. Right?

Chris Evans: 21:56

Of course. So there's a lot of you know ornamental plants being planted there particularly in and around the Morton Arboretum. Actually, there's some some big infestations in and around campus and Champaign Urbana. There's some of it through there. And then in the Carbondale area, honestly.

Chris Evans: 22:13

So there's some there's some infestations of it in natural areas like at Giant City. There's some nature preserves down there where it's a problem. There's a lot of public private land, sorry, where there's a problem down there. But I'm sure it's elsewhere, but those are kind of the three spots in the state that I think we have, you know, bigger problems with it right now.

Erin Garrett: 22:34

Okay. That's interesting because the one time I've seen it was at a botanic garden. I don't remember I don't think it was in Illinois. I think I was maybe in Pennsylvania. That's where I saw it, if I'm thinking right.

Erin Garrett: 22:46

But it was this huge, right, huge old specimen. And I was like, woah, that's crazy because I'd never seen it before. And we're gonna talk about how botanic gardens can help in the fight with invasive species later in the season. So we'll get to chat about that later on, but I was just curious because that's one you know, there were a few species added to the list that I wasn't super familiar with, right, versus like others that like stiltgrass is very common where we are. Right?

Erin Garrett: 23:13

And so like that one makes sense. The Callery Pear. Right? The ones that, like you say, people are more familiar with, but then the others, you know, it's just kind of interesting to figure out where they are. Are they really here?

Erin Garrett: 23:24

Is it more of the early detection like you mentioned? Well

Chris Evans: 23:27

and I think moving forward so, you know, we've like I said earlier, we've had like ten years since we've done any kind of regulations. And so I would say there's a lot of species that are already super common that we kind of need to catch up on our regulations and get them. And I would hope that the process of moving forward with these regulations would be aimed at regulating fewer new species because we've kind of caught up with the backlog. And then most of the newer species would be ones that you're less familiar with because we're catching them more early. Right?

Chris Evans: 23:57

I think we're we're not there yet. We're still filling in a lot of ones that should have been regulated or need to be regulated because they're widespread. But again, moving forward, I hope that we'll do those so you'll you'll be less and less familiar with them because they're they're new ones that we can actually, you know, really do prevention.

Amy Lefringhouse: 24:14

So before we put a species on the list or before it's regulated, we know that there probably has to be really clear evidence of ecological economic harm. Can you walk us through that process? What does that look like? You know, what kinds of data are needed? Kind of impacts are considered before they are put on these lists?

Chris Evans: 24:37

So particularly talking about the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act, all the new species added were recommended by the Illinois Invasive Species Council. And so they went through a pretty detailed assessment process. And so this assessment process was formalized where a lot of data was compiled from published reports, scientific journals, things like that, to pull all that together before any decision was made. These assessments, they look a little different depending on, you know, the species and and who's doing the assessments. But the one I'm most familiar with is the assessments that were used for the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act, so I'll I'll talk mostly about that one.

Chris Evans: 25:19

But, you know the data collected would be some basic biological information in terms of what is the seed longevity, the seed output, how long does the plant live, does it have the ability to sprout. You know, some of those things just kind of understanding the the the the biology of the plant. And then if there's data out there, research about, you know, ecological impacts in terms of where is it currently found, how fast does it spread, what are the mechanisms of spread, has it been demonstrated to hybridize with a native, you know, congener, has it shown been shown to have any kind of species, you know, loss of species diversity or any other kind of ecological impacts as a result of, you know, of its of an infestation. So that's a lot of that is what kind of initially gets looked at. But the assessments also look at how is it currently used.

Chris Evans: 26:14

Is it used in the horticulture industry? Is it used for any other industry? What is the economic value of it? What is the economic impact of it? How hard is it to control?

Chris Evans: 26:24

Do we have known control information? Or is it, you know, is it is it difficult to control? You know, all of these things kinda coming together to give like a full picture of what are the what's what's the situation with this species before, you know, any recommendations are made. And so those assessments are really nice because I think it removes, you know, some subjectivity out of it. It removes emotion out of it, and you kind of look at this kind of look at the data and assess it that way.

Amy Lefringhouse: 26:52

Later on in the season we're going to talk about invasives, you know, and do you look at some of that reporting data and where it is in the state and how really important that you know folks know that they can report invasive spread or existence in their counties. You is that how do you how often I guess do you use that that mapping?

Chris Evans: 27:12

Absolutely. It's very important. And so in that assessment process kind of having a clear picture where the species is at is vital. Having landowners or the public or volunteers, whoever out there reporting that information, it really helps because you get a better picture of where it is. If you don't have that data, you can't really show that this is a problem in the state.

Chris Evans: 27:35

Right? So whether they put stuff into iNaturalist or EDDMapS or any of these these reporting systems, it is it's very helpful and it is very used. And not only just for Illinois because some of these are so new, we also look at where are they at in adjoining states, where what other states are regulating the species already. And then some of them actually have, you know, climate assessments. Like how is this species going to change in terms of its suitability or where it can grow, you know, in future climate scenarios?

Chris Evans: 28:08

And so the the nice thing is the USDA APHIS has historically done a lot of these climate assessments. And for a lot of species, those are available to kind of look at.

Erin Garrett: 28:17

Oh, okay. So you talked about how the Illinois Invasive Species Council was involved in this process and that includes some subcommittees. Can you talk a little bit about how the council works and what their role is in shaping these policies and recommending species for regulation?

Chris Evans: 28:39

Sure. So a little bit of history about the council. It was started in 2005, I think, with a real focus on terrestrial invasive plants only. Right? And it it operated for about ten years, and then it it actually kinda went dormant after in about 2015, and then it was it didn't run for a while.

Chris Evans: 29:03

Right? And so it kind of served a little purpose then. It did its own thing. And then a few years ago, there was a big effort to restart it because I think there was a recognition that invasive species are a major ecological problem. Everybody said that we need to kind of address, you know, address this at a at a level beyond just one agency.

Chris Evans: 29:22

We need to pull people together and kind of have something going on. So this council was formed intentionally more broad than just terrestrial invasive plants this time. And it was was formed to kind of bring in a lot of folks, whether it's industry folks that have a stake into it, researchers, land managers. The council was formed in a way to have four different subcommittees that all address different aspects of invasive species. There's aquatic life subcommittee, there's pest and pathogens, there's wildlife, and then terrestrial plants.

Chris Evans: 30:00

So each of these committees were kind of tasked with coming up with a way of assessing different invasives within their category and then providing advice and recommendations. The council itself is actually an advisory council to the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Agriculture. So they they develop position statements or assessments or recommendations and then officially give those to those two agencies among other things. Right? And so each each subcommittee kind of works independently on their on their own and then brings things to the full council for approval or or, you know, changing vetting kind of things like that.

Chris Evans: 30:47

And so I've been fortunate enough to be one of the co chairs for the terrestrial plants subcommittee, and I work really closely with a lot of really, really good folks that are industry folks within the horticulture industry, folks that are scientists that do active research, and then active land managers as well. So it's really a it's a great committee that we've we've developed this assessment process and been developing, you know, assessing these these terrestrial invasive plants. But each of these other committees kind of have that same compilation of people that are doing assessments as well.

Erin Garrett: 31:21

And that's good to hear too that you have a broad range of folks and interests represented. Right? So it's not just one sub subset of people represented, but a lot of different viewpoints, right, and interests and bringing all those people together, which can make it complicated, I imagine, but is is important to have. Right?

Chris Evans: 31:41

Yeah. And I I think that's the key to it. Honestly, like you said, it it does complicate it a little bit just because we have people that have different priorities, different focus when it comes to invasives, different expertise. But, you know, I think the the one of the neat things about the council is it spent a lot of time kind of thoughtfully developing this list of people to make sure that it is pretty diverse in terms of backgrounds. And then spent quite a while really developing a lot of trust between the people.

Chris Evans: 32:11

Right? So there's not one subgroup is not imposing their will upon everybody else, you know, in the committee. It's really a collaborative effort working together. And in least in my opinion, it's worked really well so far in terms of the the production that we've done and the kind of how we're moving the needle a little bit on invasive species in the state.

Amy Lefringhouse: 32:32

Yeah. And that groundwork that you have to do first too. You talked about developing the, you know, evaluation process first, working on that first before you move on to actually looking even looking at the plants that are that are going to be regulated or what you know action plans are going to come out of that. You have to do that kind of like groundwork first.

Chris Evans: 32:57

Oh, it took at least a year. I mean, we spent a year as a committee without ever assessing one plant because we did have to do that groundwork. Right? We had to look at all the other states and what they were assessing, kind of figure out what what questions we needed to ask, figure out the format. I mean, it it was quite a bit of work, but you're right.

Chris Evans: 33:17

I think that's what allowed us to be successful following it is that we put in that that groundwork at first and had a a system or a process that everybody was happy with or at least everybody was you know willing to to go with.

Amy Lefringhouse: 33:31

Sure. Well looking forward, what do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for Illinois in managing invasive species? Whether that's through regulation, your assessment process, public awareness, you know, what do you see in the future?

Chris Evans: 33:55

Yeah. That's that's a good question. Your crystal

Chris Evans: 33:58

My crystal ball. You know, I I I was thinking about this and we have an abundance of existing infestations. So I think we're trying to work on preventing some of the new infestations, but almost every acre of of natural land that you can go into in an in Illinois, unfortunately, you can find an invasive species. Right? Whether that's, you know, an insect like emerald ash borer or a ubiquitous plant like bush honeysuckle here or common buckthorn in Northern Illinois.

Chris Evans: 34:31

And so I think like one of the biggest challenges I see is is making a difference at a at an ecological scale, a landscape scale. Right? Managing invasive species when they're so abundant. Right? And I think it may come down to choosing and choosing our battles, picking our battles, whatever you want to call it, where we identify some really resources at risk, whether those are native diversity or whatever, and then finding a way to control those.

Chris Evans: 35:05

The other thing is that these invasives often cross ownership boundaries. We have infestations that are broader than one landowner. How do we deal with that when one landowner wants to control it, wants to spend a lot of time and effort and funds to control their invasives across the line, maybe other landowners don't. It just makes it a complicated system. I do think that's also an opportunity, right, though?

Chris Evans: 35:30

I think there's opportunity for cost share programs, technical assistance. There's opportunity for volunteerism out there for people that really want to help. There's been some really neat projects in the state that have been developed that kind of have collaboratives where landowners are helping landowners control invasive species and do other management. There's some neat organizations like Pheasants Forever and Wild Turkey Federation out there that are seeing the benefit of controlling invasives and wanting to work with and are working with landowners to help them out with this. So I think there's a lot of opportunities moving forward particularly for control of invasives on private lands, but it is also our our biggest challenge.

Chris Evans: 36:15

Right? For sure. I'm sure there's other challenges. I mean, I know there's other challenges. Regulating some more of the the more popular species in the horticulture trade are gonna be a little bit more controversial.

Chris Evans: 36:27

That's going to be a big issue for sure. Then just making sure that we have, you know, public support for invasive species management. We're often using, you know, heavy equipment and herbicides and sometimes that's difficult for people to kind of understand why we're doing that in natural areas. Right? So it is there's a lot of challenges moving forward, I guess.

Erin Garrett: 36:49

It's complicated. Yeah. It's complicated. But hopefully, the through this season, we're gonna break down a lot of the issues and kinda just talk about the nuance. Right?

Erin Garrett: 36:58

And that's important because it is really easy to look at invasives in, like, a black and white way of, like, well, it's bad. So, like, why isn't everyone on board and why aren't we getting rid of this one and it's causing all these problems? But there is, you know, just as we've talked about today, there's a lot of different things that go into managing an invasive, determining if something is invasive. And so, you know, just like with everything, it's never that simple cut and dry. But, yeah, I think there is a lot of opportunity for collaboration, for outreach, for sharing information.

Erin Garrett: 37:31

You know, we had Emily on to talk about communicating about invasives, and I think that's something for those of us that are in the realm of invasives. Sometimes we get so focused on how we talk about them that we need to like take a step back and think about how we communicate with others who don't even know what invasives are. Right? Mhmm. And so there's a lot of work that we could do just in the general awareness and outreach still.

Erin Garrett: 37:57

Right? Some of us are like, what? We still have to like work on that? But that is, right, kind of the foundation of where we need to be. And so that piece is still really important too in addition to like actually on the ground, right, managing Oh, absolutely.

Chris Evans: 38:12

And that's the the neat thing about working with extension. And so I mentioned, I've done a lot with invasive species. But one of the things that I've really been impressed with is just the amount of expertise we have within Extension on invasive species. So whether that's, you know, folks coming at it from a horticultural background, from an agricultural background, from an ecological background, from a communications background, you know, I think extension in the state is doing a great job already kind of communicating and and filling that role as a as a technical adviser for invasive species. But I think the potential is even higher.

Chris Evans: 38:51

Right? I think that's that's one of those areas in that we need to do a lot of work in. We're doing a lot of work, but I can see it even expanding, you know, more into the future with the kind of the the the expertise we have in house.

Erin Garrett: 39:05

For sure. Yeah. Alright. Anything else that you wanna share with us today, Chris, before we wrap things up?

Chris Evans: 39:14

I guess the only thing is I'll go back to what you said with with nuance. Right? You said it's a nuanced issue. The big thing that I like if you look at my kind of the evolution of my my approach to invasive species when I was young and idealistic I guess, would you know I would really push, you got to control these invasive, you got to get rid them out of your land and things. And I kind of understand now it's more nuanced than that.

Chris Evans: 39:39

And then asking a landowner to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to control invasives across their land when the chance of success is so low is not not really what we maybe should be doing. Right? Instead, kind of embracing this nuance, looking at each situation and understanding where should you be spending money and how does that wrap into your other objectives on your land. Just know that it is a complicated issue for a landowner to decide what to do and it's a complicated issue for us that are helping to give recommendations as well. And I just want to highlight that that invasive species, it's not black and white and it's not always easy to understand what's the best path forward, guess.

Chris Evans: 40:22

And and even with regulations, it's not easy to understand like what's the best path forward because every regulation may have an economic impact too. Right? And so it's, I guess, embrace that nuance and kind of understand it's a complicated system that we're dealing with.

Amy Lefringhouse: 40:39

And every like even your kind of evolution over your learning about you know everyone's in a different kind of spot in their learning and knowing about invasive species and how that how they their own land you know is impacted or might impact others' land. Know everyone's in a different space. So just realizing that too.

Erin Garrett: 41:06

Okay. Well, thank you, Chris, so much for sharing all of your knowledge about invasives and regulations. I don't know. We gotta come up with a catchy title because I feel like some people might be like, this episode. But it was really great, and you make it really interesting as always to learn about anything related to invasives.

Amy Lefringhouse: 41:24

Of course, you put Chris Evans in the title and people are like,

Erin Garrett: 41:27

yes.

Chris Evans: 41:29

Well well, thank you so much.

Erin Garrett: 41:31

We're gonna finish our episode today with our everyday observations where we highlight more of the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting. So Amy, I'm gonna pick on you first. What do you got?

Amy Lefringhouse: 41:46

Okay. So I'm sitting in Western Illinois and you two are sitting in Southern Illinois. And I'm very envious because I just got back from a trip to Southern Illinois and I saw both of you actually when I was down there. And but I got to see, I mean I showed pictures of Southern Illinois to some of my friends and my family and they were like, what?

Amy Lefringhouse: 42:08

That's Illinois? And I just was, I was so surprised that folks well, had not been to Southern Illinois. So this is my plug to, and somebody from down there when I was there talked about, we're so, we love it down here so much, it's so pretty and we want to share that with the world, but we also want to keep it keep it natural and keep it for ourselves. So but if anyone listening hasn't been to Southern Illinois, please take a trip down there. You'll see some really amazing things that we have here in this state.

Amy Lefringhouse: 42:40

But one of the observations that I had while I was down there is, and you talked about of course we say you know the mundane, the normal of everyday life. Well looking in little holes and cracks and giant rocks was very mundane at first. Was like what are we doing? We're taking these little flashlights and we're like looking over here in these little holes in these ginormous rocks and they were very covered with moss and liverworts and things like that and they were moist and we were just like looking in and they're like, there's one. And we found some salamanders inside of those little the cracks of the the rocks, and it was a long tailed salamander, I think is what we were looking at at one point in time.

Amy Lefringhouse: 43:28

But gosh, we were kind of like little kids then. Every little crack in the rock and every little hole in the rock was just like a place where you could find something really cool. So it was normal and mundane, the little cracks on the rocks. And then it was like amazing when we found little salamanders in there. So that's my everyday observation.

Chris Evans: 43:49

Nice.

Erin Garrett: 43:50

That's awesome, Amy. We were happy to have you down, and so I'm happy to come back. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. Alright, Chris.

Chris Evans: 43:59

So for mine, I so we're this is in you know, we're filming this kind of in in winter, and I recently drove my son back to college in Pennsylvania. So he he's going to college in Central Pennsylvania, and when we were over there, we had a chance to do some hiking in the woods. And my observation there was they had just done some trail clearing on this trail that we were hiking on, and they pruned some branches off of the trees around it to give you more space to walk. Right? We had a beautiful overlook over a lake.

Chris Evans: 44:34

But anyway, on the way out to it, noticed that there was several sugar maple branches that were pruned off kind of far out at the branch that had been leaking sap. Right? Been oozing sap or running sap, but it was a cold spell. And so we had these long maple sap icicles hanging off of these branches that were kind of neat to see for one thing, but of course, the kids and I were like, we gotta taste these.

Erin Garrett: 45:01

Right? Absolutely.

Chris Evans: 45:02

Yep. So we broke them off and chewed on these these maple sap icicles, and they did taste, you know, maple y a little bit. It was kind of neat to see. Right? It was kind of neat to taste that.

Chris Evans: 45:11

And you say, yeah. I could I could envision this being maple syrup sometime in the future. But just kinda seeing the sap flow and seeing it visually through all these long icicles coming out of the branches was just, I thought, real fascinating.

Amy Lefringhouse: 45:25

That's awesome. Candy in the woods just hanging.

Chris Evans: 45:28

That's right.

Amy Lefringhouse: 45:29

And that reminds me of I'm reading Winter World I think it's called. It's like the, I don't know, Animal's Ingenuity of Surviving Winter I think is and I need to look up what the author's name is. But anyway, it talks about squirrels and things up in the Northeast kind of like chewing into some of the maple trees just to have some of that sap flow come out and then they can come back to that and use that sap for you know during the winter as kind of sugar carbs things like that. Oh sure. I get

Chris Evans: 46:03

one of the common questions I get since I'm a forester is you know what's wrong with my tree and all this. But one of the things is there's some kind of bug in my tree because they're drilling all these little holes in a straight line. Right? Mhmm. And I like that question because I get to tell people that, oh no, it's a woodpecker.

Chris Evans: 46:21

Right? It's the yellow bellied sapsucker, you know, feeding on the sap. And that's a question that I don't know how many times each year I get it, but I love getting that question.

Amy Lefringhouse: 46:29

Yeah. What about you, Erin?

Erin Garrett: 46:31

Well, I'll wrap things up. I was, oh, a month ago on a trip in kind of rural Southern Indiana and we were driving from one location to another and just through this tiny little town. And I looked off just to the right out the windshield and saw a bald eagle that had just caught a rabbit and was trying to take flight and get in the air with his with his little prize that he found And it was like right, like, in a gravel lot of a small shop, like, right next to the road. And it was just magnificent because you usually don't see them that close. And I just got right, like, maybe a three second glimpse of it because I was driving.

Erin Garrett: 47:18

But it was magnificent just to see it up close and see its little catch that it got. So that was my again, not really an everyday observation, but something a little special, but it was really really cool to see.

Chris Evans: 47:29

Sure. Wow.

Amy Lefringhouse: 47:30

That's neat.

Erin Garrett: 47:31

This has been another episode on the Everyday Environment Podcast. Check us out next week where we talk with Michelle Beloskur about public gardens as sentinels against invasive plants.