Athens County has been invaded.
For years, hundreds of slow, silent invaders have been creeping into southeast Ohio. They are destroying crops, desolating woods and spreading disease.
The invaders are certain species of plants and animals. Charles Hammer, administrator of the Athens City-County Health Department, said there are upward of 100 invasive species already residing in Athens County.
“There’s probably hundreds and hundreds of plant species that are invasive that are either established or are becoming established in Ohio,” Hammer said.
Hammer said county officials are particularly worried about Johnson grass, which was introduced as a grazing food for cattle but quickly began spreading beyond the pastures where it was grown, as well as Autumn Olive, a shrub originally introduced to help local wildlife.
“It was actually introduced and spread by people (who) wanted to improve wildlife habitat,” Hammer said. “But the unintended consequence is that the seeds are spread by wildlife, and it just pops up all over the place.”
Hammer said those invasive species can be destructive to local wildlife and
Peter Borchard, owner of Companion Plants, which raises native herbal plants and seeds, said he has had particular issues with those two invasive species.
“We’ve got about 14 acres here, and we’ve got this Autumn Olive that has really taken over about a five-acre pasture and is now spreading into our woods,” Borchard said. “And we’ve got about an acre that we raise seed crops in, and Johnson grass is one of our worst weeds in it.”
Borchard also noted that he began seeing a new invasive species, a flowering plant called Garlic Mustard, in his fields recently.
“Just three years ago, I saw the first ones on our property,” he said. “That looks like it’s going to be one of the fastest-growing things I’ve ever seen. Whenever I see it, I pull it out, but wherever I pull it out, there’s 10 times more the next year.”
Cale Linscott, owner of Deep Roots Farm, which grows plants without the use of synthetic pesticides or herbicides, said he plans to use the invasive species to his advantage.
“We’re hoping to look at it as a resource,” Linscott said. “We have some goats, and the goats love to eat all of that stuff.”
Invasive plants are not the only type of species plaguing the region. Hammer also noted several types of insects are working their way into Appalachia.
“There is an insect called the Emerald Ash Borer, and it’s basically killing all of the ash trees in the county,” Hammer said. “Just in the last three or four years, it has become widespread throughout the county, and it’s literally killing every ash tree in Athens County.”
Hammer said invasive species, both
“Probably the biggest factor is human introduction,” Hammer said. “The Emerald Ash Borer, for instance, was originally brought in with some infested woods in pallets that were brought in from China to Detroit about 20 years ago.”
Hammer noted that although humans caused the problem of invasive species, there is little that can be done to stop them.
“For the most part of the control of some of these invasives that are very biologically successful, we’re going to have to learn to live with them,” Hammer said.
