Dealing with the periwinkle problem

Hand pulling periwinkle (Photo by NCC)
Jill and I did some follow up to some invasive species removal we did last year at Lathrop. Just a few fragments of the very invasive Periwinkle left! We picked them out by hand, leaving the native mayapple, trillium, Jack-in-the-pulpit and...
My first CV event: Nexen Energy interns help remove weeds in the badlands

Nexen CV event, Horseshoe Canyon, AB (Photo by NCC)
Less than a week into my internship with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), I attended my first Conservation Volunteers (CV) event on June 5, 2014. The NCC team arrived early at the site, located on the Nodwell-Horseshoe Canyon property, to...
What should we do about invasive species?

Leafy spurge (Photo by Ed L/pawpaw67)
Invasive alien species (IAS) have been identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. It’s therefore no surprise that controlling and eradicating them is one of the top...
Getting rid of invasive species has never been more…delicious.

Maria Olkinitskaya picking dandelions at Baie Verte CV event, NB (Photo by NCC)
If you can’t beat them, eat them! Getting rid of invasive species has never been more…delicious. Invasive species management as a whole is extremely complex. However, cooking with certain edible invasives is a creative, fun and...
Jetbead: A new threat to conservation
Mhairi McFarlane with leucospora (Photo by NCC)
Conservation is full of mysteries. Recently, my colleague Jill Crosthwaithe and I found ourselves having to turn to gardening literature in order to identify the many non-native, ornamental shrubs and other plants that we kept stumbling across in...
Grass carp: The new aquatic invader

Grass carp (Photo by Eric Engbretson, USFWS)
There has been a great deal of attention paid to the Asian carp invasion in recent years, and recently some devastating news was released: grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are probably already spawning in the Great Lakes basin(1). This...
Year of the Horse: The wild horses of Sable Island

Sable Island horses (Photo by Bill Freedman)
According to the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, the year of the horse begins on January 31. In related mythology, this fine animal is viewed as being bright, capable, energetic, intelligent, and warm-hearted, which are attributes that...