The Nature Conservancy - The War on Weeds

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John Sugden and other SWAT team members use GPS units and coordinates from the helicopter crew to find weeds like yellow star thistle. Then they apply herbicides or “biocontrol” bugs. Star thistle covers thousands of acres; the Conservancy is trying to stop the spread.

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The War on Weeds

Dealing With The Seven Devils

Yellow star thistle is the biggest weed problem in Hells Canyon, but it isn’t the only one. Talsma has a list. He calls it the “Seven Devils.”

Yellow star thistle is at the top. Then comes leafy spurge, followed by whitetop. Then Mediterranean sage, several types of knapweed, and rush skeletonweed. “It’s uglier than the dickens, and it’s really quick to take all the moisture,” Talsma says. “It can move five miles in a year.” Rounding out the list is Medusahead grass, which grows in thick mats that burn like gasoline in a wildfire.

It’s a devil of a job trying to contain the weeds in Hells Canyon, let alone the rest of the country. And it’s often discouraging work. But this new approach — the helicopter, digital aerial sketch mapping and the ground crews — has shown good results over the past four years. The technology lets crews pounce when new threats arrive, when new weeds sprout.

Says Karl, “I can walk out of the hangar at the end of the day and hand you the data you need to go find those things and kill them.”

And not just in Hells Canyon. The weed program here has become a model for combating weeds in other landscapes. Last year, for example, the Conservancy took the approach to the Owyhees, a series of canyons and badlands in southwestern Idaho and just across the border in Oregon.

And the organization is encouraging other groups to get in on the act — offering all of the aerial sketch-mapping data, free of charge, to everybody in this region. The data shows where the weeds are and, almost as important, where they aren’t. That information lets ground crews spend their scarce time and limited money wisely.

“Sketch mapping really works well in big, rugged terrain,” says Atchison. And the technique is “big time” transferable.

The technology is ready to go. SWAT teams, helicopters, computers, bugs and weed sprays. Maybe even a little early-morning rap music.

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