The federally Threatened bog turtle faces a new threat in the northern portion of its contiguous range. On August 5th, the USFWS issued an advisory bulletin that an unusually high number of dead and apparently diseased bog turtles have been reported from four states, including New York and Massachusetts. I received the alert by email from a colleague and the full bulletin is reposted here.
"...The number of bog turtles found dead in their wetland habitat (2 to 4 dead turtles in each of four wetlands in NY and MA) exceeds that which is typically reported.
In some cases, dead bog turtles have been found entirely intact, with no obvious cause of death.
On several live bog turtles, a grayish or whitish substance and/or discoloration has been
documented on the skin of the head, neck and limbs, as well as on the claws. In some cases,
these appear as skin lesions. Scute sloughing and loss of claws and toes has also been observed.
Based on data collected at a Massachusetts site, the symptoms appear to worsen over time.
At this time, the causative agent(s) of the observed symptoms has not been identified..."
This is extremely troubling news. When I was with The Nature Conservancy, bog turtle conservation in Massachusetts, Connecticut and part of Eastern New York was a major focus of my work. The bog turtle is at the extreme northern extrent of its contiguous range in Massachusett. The USFWS Recovery Plan for the bog turtle's northern population identies just three bog turtle sites in the Commonwealth, but two of them are considered good sites and are under conservation management. I am intimately familiar with both of these, and know that if one has lost 2-4 adults to a new threat the viability of what would otherwise be considered a strong and vital population is in grave peril. Past research indicates that the loss of just one breeding adult a year at these sites would be enough to tip the balance toward extirpation.
The 2001 rare species recovery plan records what was known at that time about the threat posted to wild bog turtle populations by disease (my emphasis added):
"...At present, there are no substantiated reports of disease affecting a wild population of bog turtles, although at one site in Columbia County, New York (J. L. Behler, pers. comm) the number of dead turtles is cause for concern; eight dead bog turtles were collected during three visits to the site in 1988 and 1989 ( A. breisch, in Mt. 2000). A sick turtle removed from that population and held for several years in captivity tested positive for upper respiratory distress syndrome (URDS) upon necropy (J. L. Behler, pers. comm.). Although this could indicate a health problem within that communication, it is also possible that the turtle contracted this disease while in captivity. Disease issues have the potential to become a much larger threat to wild bog turtle populations as they are subjected to more handling by researchers or if manipulation of turtle populations is undertaken through the deliberate release into the wild of bog turtles from other areas, zoological collections, or those seized by law enforcement activities. It should be noted that thorough health screening of wild-caught bog turtles has not been a standard practice of researchers, although it may be warranted (Smith in iitt. 2001)..."
I do not know for certain whether all four sites where increased mortality and apparent disease have been observed coincide with those where there has been more handling by researchers, but it is highly likely at least at the first site where such observations were made, because very few people besides researchers even know where the turtles are or would know to report what they had observed to the proper authorities. In the Massachusetts case, only researchers have legal access to the sites.
There is additional publically available data concerning the possibly diseased bog turtle site in new York mentioned in 2001 rare species recovery plan. Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America (2000) identifies the respiratory disease at that site as Mycoplasma:
"...Of additional concern is the recent (1997) discovery of Mycoplasma (the bacterium that adversely affects the desert tortoise) at a bog turtle site in New York. This disease has the potential to cause significant declines in bog turtle populations. The site where Mycoplasma has been discovered has been identified as one of the best remaining New York sites and lies in a valley with additional, extant sites leading to the possibility of spread of the disease through a significant portion of the remaining bog turtle range in New York State..."
The USFWS disease alert makes no mention of Mycoplasma and instead describes different symptoms. That is what is most alarming about this new threat. An unknown and highly lethal pathogen will take time to analyze, let alone isolate causes and develop a meaningful response. Bog turtles do not have any time. their populations are too small.
Consider that in 2006, a new disease affecting little brown bats in New York was first described for science. Three years later, white nose syndrome is causing up to 90-100% mortality in bat caves from the White Mountains of New Hampsive to sw Virginia. It has affected between 500,000 and 1,000,000 bats of several different species. There is still no absolute cause for this disease, nor a cure. One theory is that human activity may have been an initial vector for the spread of the fungus.
I suspect that the reason this new turtle disease has not yet been reported in Connecticut is that no researcher has been to our few remaining (and much poorer quality) bog turtle sites to check. There has not been a live turtle reported from a couple of these places in years. I am aware that several years ago, one Connecticut turtle was found by a passerby and taken to a public beach where it was spotted by a knowledgable person and ultimately returned to the site where it belonged. My understanding is that this turtle was later found dead.
This leaves open a difficult question. Should researchers visit other bog turtle sites to determine whether they, too, have evidence of increased mortality and apparant disease? Or should they refrain from doing so, given the potential that their activity could be contaminating clean sites? The felt soles of waders are known sources of introducing the microscopic alga Didymosphenia geminata or "Rock Snot" to trout streams. Unless soaked for at least 40 minutes in hot water at least 113° F (45° C) - or for 30 minutes with a 5% solution of dishwashing detergent - what keeps a researcher dry may be killing the very things they care for.
I saw one of America's Most Wanted while driving to work today. It was unmistakable, though I had to stop the car to be sure. There by the roadside growing halfway down the embankment but still high above the guardrail, were the enormous stalk, leaves and flowers of Heracleum mantegazzianum: the notorious Giant hogweed.
I must have driven passed this plant all growing season without noticing it, which might seem remarkable for a species that can grow a dozen feet high or more. This one was about 5' above the roadgrade, and about the same amount of plant downslope in a tangle of poison ivy that discourgaed closer inspection. The thing that cause my eye were the massive inflorescences: huge platters of flowers that looked a bit like Queen Anne's Lace on steroids. If it had not been in bloom, it might have escaped detection.
That's the challenge with new incursions by invasive / exotic species. There is often a delay between the time when they take hold in a new place and when they are observed and recognized for what they are. The mantra of invasive species control is early detection and rapid respponse, because for many of these organisms it becomes exponentially more difficult to eradicate or contrain them with the passage of time.
Heracleum mantegazzianium has been around for a long time. It was introduced horticulturally, as so many of these species were before their invasive attributes were recognized, with the first record of its planting back in 1917. The shady, moist areas in which it particularly thrives have not been especially overrun with Hogweed run amok, at least in where it is just gaining a toehold, but the plant I observed clearly had escaped from cultivation. There is a known population of the plants in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, a mile or so from where this one was observed, and utility wires above probably provided the perch for the bird which was the vector for the spread of their seed.
Hogweed, however, has one additional attribute which has made it a top priority for State and Federal noxious weed eradication efforts. The plant contains the toxin furocoumarin, which can make skin highly photosensitive, causing weeping blisters and permanent scarring. Contact with the eyes can cause blindness. For these reasons, authorites consider a threat to public health.
The plant superficially resembles cow parsnip and Queen Anne's Lace, but its size at maturity is a dead giveaway, especially when in bloom. I did my part for early detection and reported this finding, along with photographs and detailed information about its location, to Donna Ellis of the Connectticut Invasive Plant Working Group; Elizabeth Corrigan, who is responsible for coordinating rapid response efforts for this plant in our region elizabethcorrigan@yahoo.com; and Les Mehrhoff at the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England. It turns out that Corrigan drove by the same site on the same day and by her account "nearly drove off the road" when she saw the plant.
It is fortunate that I have lots of connections in the New England Invasive Species world, and that we have the chance to get this plant before all those seeds rain down. Who knows where else it may be lurking, unnoticed, out there in the wild?
The unseasonably warm weather we have experienced here in the Litchfield Hills over the last few days has really given a kick start to Spring. Many of the bulbs, ephemeral wildflowers and trees are leafing out and bursting into bloom at least 10 days ahead of where they were last year at this time. Temperatures are now more in line, with chilly nights and days in the low 60s, but already one's thoughts turn to spaded earth and seedlings in soil thta may yet experience a hard frost before it is safe for summer garden glories like tomatoes and basil that I await with great pleasure.
I can smell the smoke of someone burning brush through my open office window. These early Spring days are precisely the wrong time to spark up a burn pile, with tinder dry lands and strong winds ready to carry embers and fan the flames. It is a good time, however to burn invasive barberry, which has just expended its energy reserves in a first flush of green and will have a hard time bouncing back from a good scorching.
Tomorrow is Mayday and this weekend is therefore the one time of the year when the women of Bryn Mawr College revel in white. I have fond memories of maypoles on the green, strawberries and cream for breakfast and frolics on the grass from my years at Haverford and as a "Bryn Man".
"Pray dainty nymphs, and spake / Shall we play barley break? fa la la la la..."
Who wouldn't trade their work-a-day attire for straw hats and morris bells at such a time? It's good to be the goat-footed balloon man...
I happened upon an 1885 History of Berkshire County and discovered a passage relating to farming in New Marlboro, but just as applicable elsewhere in the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills during the late 19th century:
"...agriculture just now, especially in the eastern portion of the town, is suffering a strange and painful decline. Many homesteads have been sold for for less than the cost of their buildings, and others, the dwelling, the outbuildings, and most of the fences virtually abandoned, are being used as large pasture tracts. The famous saying that the first settlers feared that they could not find enough stone for building purposes, now when boulders covers o large part of the surface, seems incomprehensible. Perhaps these stones were regarded as unsuitable for building, or more probably they were then covered with vegetable mold and have since been heaved to the surface by frosts which strike deeper than when the earth was protected by forests. Many hundred acres formerly yielding fine crops of hay cannot now be mowed, much less plowed. As a consequence of this, and perhaps also because of the exhaustion of certain elements of the soil, there appeared, about forty years ago, a shrubby growth known as hard hack (Potentilla fruticosa) and steeple top (Spirea tomentosa), the two growing together, and this growth now covers entire farms, destroying even much of the pasture. This is one of the most discouraging features of New Marlboro farming, since to clear the land of boulders and hard hack would cost more than its present, or subsequent value. Much of this land, moreover, would require to be underdrained. nature is providing some compensation in covering much of this land with a growth of pine, which destroys the hard hack and may soon become valuable for timber.
The author of the New Marlboro chapter of the History of Berkshire County, Professor S. T. Frost, is a keen observer who recognizes many of the patterns and processes - both natural and social - that affected the landscape of his day. Some of the rural communities of western New England lost more than half their populations in the decades after the Civil War, as the availability of more fertile western lands and urban migration combined with the collapse of the local iron industry and decline of agriculture in a perfect storm of cultural, economic and ecological disturbance.
The plants he describes as invading the abandoned farmlands are actually native to our region rather than introduced exotics, but behaved invasively in the absence of competition in the wet meadows that were no longer farmed. Potentilla fruticosa, more commonly known today as Shrubby cinquefoil , is a calcium-loving wetland indicator species in the marble valleys of the Housatonic watershed. Steeplebush (Hardhack) usually occurs in wetlands as well. Neither species provides good grazing (even today, deer avoid browsing cinquefoil), so in addition to the factors mentioned for their spread, the use of former cropland as pasture might have encouraged the growth of these species until they out-competed the available forage. Although he would not have though to use this term, Professor Frost is describing the impact of a lack of stewardship on the condition of previously managed lands.
Pasture pines invading abandoned fields became a regular feature of the changing New England landscape. Anytime I find myself walking through a stand of mature white pine and nothing else, I am certain that they grew to maturity as a plantation or in an open field. The forest that reclaimed these previously managed lands is different in species composition and structure, the attributes of its soil and the habitat it provides, than that which had been first cleared for settlement. Some of the bird species that would have been abundant during the height of agriculture in our region - meadowlarks, bobolinks, and a host of other grassland birds - are in parabolic decline as the land reforests. Others like the wild turkey that would have been rare in Professor Frost's day are now thriving and expanding their numbers.
The very next passage in this history anticipates the state of real estate affairs in the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills 125 years later:
"This present unfortunate condition of New Marlboro agriculture must be temporary. When the best portions of the West, now being taken up so rapidly, are occupied, these deserted lands must become valuable, both for their locality and their producing power."
Proximity to major metropolitan centersin New York, and to a lesser degree Hartford, has made our land valuable as residential real estate. A renewed interest in locally-produced food and concern about the loss of our remaining farmland to non-agricultural uses runs up against the hard fact that the land is worth more in a developed state than as farmland, and is too expensive for new farmers to obtain. Meanwhile, Berkshire County is losing population and Connecticut is hemorrhaging an exodus of young people at one of the highest rates in the nation. We have saved many significant lands from development but are unable to maintain them in a condition which will ensure that the very qualities that made them special will persist over time. Without the resources to care for and steward our fields and forests, they are vulnerable to fresh degradation from invasive species and to loss of ecological productivity.
We should expect more changes in this altered landscape, not all of it for the worse. Frost reports that "the fox and the raccoon are the largest game that now survives civilization." Today we share our backyards with bears.
I had a day out on the land - an increasingly rare event during the work week as I become progressively more executive and therefore bound to desks and meetings. I made the time to volunteer with a bunch of high school students clearing trails and removing invasive species along our local greenway. There was ample opportunity during the course of the day to experience what is refreshing and what is exasperating about the adolescent mindset. It was a good group of kids, all told, and time well spent.
We ended up spending most of our time uprooting invasive plants. The sweet soils of Canaan's valleys are overloaded with introduced exotics. In one small trail section we confronted masses of shrubby honeysuckles - those promiscuous Asian species that hybridize with abandon and whose only serious competition comes from other invasives, among them Japanese barberry, winged euonymous, glossy buckthorn and Asiatic bittersweet. All of these plants can tolerate shaded conditions, and in tern out compete the native flora that might otherwise have flourished.
We did, however, have the treat of seeing one of our region's autumn glories. Greater fringed gentian is considered rare and endangered in a number of states throughout its historic range and has an affinity for limestone soils in meadows or wet woods. Such conditions abound in this corner of Connecticut, though the gentian that grow in the field beyond our house can be gone for years at at time before reappearing in some other part of the meadow. Berkshire poet William Cullen Bryant penned this homage to the fringed gentian, that last blue glory of the fading year, when all around is yellow and sere.
"Thou waitest late, and com'st alone
When woods are bare and birds have flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
"Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall."
There were scores of fringed gentians in the glades and seeps along the trail, as good a reminder as any of what what all this effort to knock back the weeds is all about.
There are invasive species even in Outland. Encountered whilst playing WOW:
 "Common Azerothian Species" | |
| "This plant was probably carried through the Dark Portal by someone from Azeroth." |
The best way I know to absolutely kill an otherwise cheerful conversation over cocktails (aside from gross breaches of decorum) is to tell your companions that just about every tree species they know and love is poised to succumb to a devastating plague. Colleagues of mine involved in the desperate fight to halt the spread of invasive pests and pathogens like Emerald Ash Borer and Asian Longhorned Beetle admit that the best, and perhaps only hope we have to to try and get really good at containment of existing infestations, with a robust investment in early detection and rapid response for new outbreaks. All that will do is by time, and we need at least a decade before an effective biological control for the worst pests may be possible with a reasonably good chance that whatever good bug is introduced to eat the bad ones doesn't change its eating habits. It is a slim hope, and real containment is virtually impossible to maintain.
This past week, one of the worst of these pests jumped the fence from outbreaks on Long Island and in New jersey and is now in Central Massachusetts. Asian Longhorned Beetle ( Anoplophora glabripennis) is confirmed in Worcester. Jennifer Foreman Orth of the Invasive Species Weblog is trying to deal with the outbreak in her day job. These beetles kill maple trees. Other preferred host tree species include Elms, Willows, Ash, Poplar...But sugar maple is the prime species at risk. Researchers at UVM put it this way:
"ALB is a serious pest problem in China, where it causes significant economic loss in poplar plantations. So far all ALB infestations in the US have been found in suburban and urban environments. However, in the US where millions of acres of contiguous hardwood forests occur, the impact of ALB is unknown but could be devastating."
In the early 1900s, an introduced fungus virtually eliminated American Chestnut from the forests of the Eastern United States. In mid century, Dutch Elm Disease killed nearly half the mature American Elm trees in America. Both are still with us. Asian Longhorned Beetle has the potential to be the tree killer of our generation.
