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Team conducting line searches of the area to eradicate Mouse Ear Hawkweed. Photo: ACT Parks and Wildlife
Six ACT Parks and Conservation staff have joined forces with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service this week on the main ranges of Kosciusko National Park to defend the landscape against a horror weed that can decimate biodiversity.
ACT Weed officer Steve Taylor said the battle against mouse-ear hawkweed had been long and government's were pulling out all stops because the European plant changed the soil chemistry where it grew rendering it inhospitable to other plant life.
Joint NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and ACT Parks and Conservation hawkweed search team. Photo: Unknown
"It is a very high-risk weed and can be devastating," Mr Taylor said. "Entire hillsides in New Zealand have had all the native plants destroyed and the only thing growing there now is mouse-ear hawkweed."
The utmost rigour was used to scour sites in need of protection such as nature reserves, national parks and farmland.
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"Its a huge operation going on on the main range in Kosciuszko," Mr Taylor said.
"They do line searches like police, if no plants are detected they send a drone through for imaging and then the dogs to guarantee the search area is clear."
Remotely operated drones are used for target spraying and to capture terrain images. Photo: ACT Parks and Wildlife
Mr Taylor said the encroachment of such species meant areas lost native plant life, which reduced habitat for insects, then wildlife and so on.
Similar efforts have been made to rid Namadgi National Park and Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve of the invasive weed including the ACT government loaning a NSW hawkweed sniffer dog named Sally to double check the sites.
Members of the hawkweed search team dropped in high country. Photo: ACT Parks and Wildlife
ACT authorities are keeping a close eye on the dodder weed, after an exotic form of the parasitic plant called the small-seeded alfalfa dodder, was found for the first time in the ACT last week suffocating a pot plant in a commercial nursery.
NSW National Parks hawkweed Detection dogs and handler Hillary Cherry. Photo: ACT Parks and Wildlife
In high doses the dodder weed can be poisonous to horses and cattle causing abdominal pain and diarrhoea, and in some cases liver damage, haemorrhages throughout the body and secondary brain damage.
The dodder stems twine around the host, branching to form a tangled mass which can spread from the initial host to adjacent plants.
The dodder suckers penetrate the host plant tissues sapping its nutrients causing a reduction in crop yield by preventing the host plant from growing or killing it.
Mr Taylor said while dodder weed was widespread in NSW, the exotic form found last week was a new introduced variety which posed a threat to the region as there were no pests or diseases to limit its rampant growth.
"It can overrun other plants and spread aggressively," he said. "They can be found on a range of plants but can pea family plants are common. For us in the ACT the main commercial pea plant crop would be lucerne."
While the emergence of this dodder weed was considered low-risk currently, Mr Taylor said it was crucial the public helped in monitoring any spread as the threat was very real.
"In the past authorities didn't act quickly enough when new weeds turned up in the area and then they become too costly to deal with," he said. "We have an informed approach so we aren't left playing catch up in our control efforts."
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