Diario del proyecto CKISS Priority Invasive Plants

Yellow flag iris: that deceptively pretty plant that seems like the perfect addiction to your garden or ornamental pond. But don’t let this attractive plant fool you! Once established, yellow flag iris can quickly out-compete its neighbors, monopolizing valuable nutrients and dominating yard space. What’s worst is that all parts of this plant are toxic to humans and animals – not great if there are little ones or pets in your household.

Yellow flag iris has negative impacts on the natural environment as well. The roots of this plant can form thick, dense mats that can block water flow and displace native plants, which can dry out wetlands and alter ecosystem balance. This plant also reduces habitat available for wildlife, including native fish habitat and bird nesting and rearing sites.

For all of these reasons, our Operations team at CKISS prioritized yellow flag iris removal around the Nelson area, including Bird Creek Marsh near the Kootenay Canal and boat-access only sites along Kootenay Lake. We also lead two community weed pull events for this plant! Overall, we were able to remove over 5000 kilograms of yellow flag iris from the area. That's huge!

Thank you to everyone who supported this project and reported yellow flag iris through our CKISS Priority Invasive Plants 2021 project! Every observation helps.

Please be on the look out for Black Henbane. It has been observed in the region and came from a shipment of manure.

For more information see:
 https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/invasive-species/alerts/black_henbane_alert.pdf

Report High Priority Species Directly to CKISS

If you observe any high priority species (Prevent, EDRR or Eradicate/Annual Control species), in addition to sharing on iNaturalist, we would appreciate if you could also submit a report of the observation to CKISS . This is to ensure that we are aware of these high priority sites and can follow-up with you if necessary. Our priority list can be found under "More", "Guides", Guide to Invasive Plants of the Central Kootenays.

Explore our Priority List

Have a look at our iNaturalist Guide to Invasive Plants of the Central Kootenays to see photos of the species that are included in this project.

This project and our iNaturalist guide reflect the species included on the CKISS Plant Priority List.

You'll notice that the species are categorized by priority level. These categories guide how CKISS manages each species.

We encourage you to have a look at our guide and become familiar with these species so that you can recognize them in the field.

Report High Priority Species Directly to CKISS

If you observe any high priority species (Prevent, EDRR or Eradicate/Annual Control species), in addition to sharing on iNaturalist, we would appreciate if you could also submit a report of the observation to CKISS . This is to ensure that we are aware of these high priority sites and can follow-up with you if necessary.

While the CKISS 2020 field season is over, November continued to be an active month for the CKISS Priority Invasive Plants 2020 project.

34 observations were added added to our project in November, representing 20 different invasive plant species.

We are excited to welcome six new members to our project! We look forward to seeing your observations. To learn more about which plants we are interested in seeing observations of, check out our Guide to Invasive Plants of the Central Kootenay .

Although some parts of our region are beginning to see snow on the ground, we hope you will continue to keep an eye out for invasive species this winter!

It is so exciting to see all of the observations of species on our Priority List that have already been uploaded to iNaturalist.

We are looking forward to seeing more of your great photos. Your observations give us some great insight into what is being found in our region.

We hope that you will join our project to stay up-to-date on what's being found in the Central Kootenays!

We have also created a Guide which provides more information on the species on our Priority List and how CKISS is managing them: https://inaturalist.ca/guides/12052

If you are interested in learning more about CKISS check out our website: https://ckiss.ca/ and consider subscribing to our newsletter!