Invasive Species Awareness Week
Many of us look forward to spring’s arrival as the best time to watch the forest reawaken after winter as wildflowers gradually begin to bloom. But Spring also stirs to life a host of invasive, non-native plants which compete with our native wildflowers and trees for essential resources. Invasive, non-native plants reduce biodiversity, disrupt native plant-animal associations, and alter natural regimes and cycles (such as fire and hydrology). Invasive species are said to impact nearly half of the species currently listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Federal Endangered Species Act.
Most of us are unaware of which plants are invasive and which are not, or the ways in which invasive plants like oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose and garlic mustard threaten our region’s biodiversity and natural heritage. That is why Governor Beverly Perdue declared the first week of April as North Carolina’s Invasive Plant Awareness Week. Read more
SAHC and a slew of volunteers spent a full day mowing, trimming, and cutting to create additional habitat for the rare and “near threatened” golden-winged warbler on Little Hump Mountain in the Highlands of Roan. The Golden-winged Warbler (GWW) is an early successional species that is dependent on a unique habitat consisting of sparse trees, shrubs, and abandoned fields. Unfortunately, the GWW’s habitat is rapidly disappearing, as old farmsteads and other early successional habitats are developing back into forested land.
During the first week of May, staff from Navitat Canopy Adventures in Asheville volunteered with SAHC to install water bars on trails on a conservation easement. The property, a 231-acre conservation easement protected by SAHC, is located within the Craggy Mountains in Barnardsville and was protected in two phases. The first phase protected 197 acres and was completed in 2003. The second phase was completed in 2008 and protected 34 acres. Conservation of this property helps protect streams of the French Broad watershed from sedimentation and other pollutants. 
