The war against invasive species has been ramped up.

The Sandy River Basin Watershed Council and the Mt. Hood National Forest
warriors just got reinforcements.

The Oregon Invasive Species Council, established by the Oregon Legislature in
2002, has launched iMapInvasives, an online GIS-based reporting and
querying tool.

“This is a huge step forward for Oregon,” said council coordinator Vern Holm.
“There are other tools in existence that provide important functions for
organizations such as ours, but iMapInvasives provides a comprehensive
package to meet the needs of the public and private land managers and
citizen scientists, and it’s exciting that Oregon is one of the first western
states to use the program.”

IMap was developed through a partnership between the Nature Conservancy,
NatureServe, the New York Natural Heritage Program, Florida Natural Areas
Inventory and Oregon Biodiversity Information Center.

It will help land managers, regional planners and others who are working to
prevent, control or manage invasive species to accurately and quickly record
and track where all types of invasive plants, animals, fish and diseases are
found.

Russ Plaeger, tireless soldier and land stewardship coordinator for the Sandy
River Basin Watershed Council was impressed with the new tool.

“iMapInvasives will be a useful new tool for folks who are involved in tracking
and controlling invasive plants on a regular basis,” Plaeger said. “For trained
users it is a good complement to tools that already exist because it
consolidates information in a shared database.”

A special benefit of the new tool is that although an organization can batch
upload large quantities of information at once, anyone with data entry access
can add invasive species observations at any time.

“One of the reasons our organization provided financial support to
iMapInvasives is because of the many functions it can provide,” said Sam
Leininger, WeedWise program manager at the Clackamas Soil and Water
Conservation District. “And instead of Oregonians using 50-plus databases to
manage invasives, we now have one central location where we can input data,
share data with partners, and have access to real-time information.”

The initial list of species was developed from the Oregon Department of
Agriculture’s noxious weed lists, the Oregon Invasive Species Council’s 100
Worst Invaders, and any species that partner agencies are tracking.

The tool was launched with more than 85,000 observations of invasive
species, and the list will continue to grow as new species are recommended.
All species will be reviewed before adding to the list to ensure the species is
invasive and its taxonomy aligns with NatureServe’s standards.

Despite the rush of reinforcements, Plaeger points out that the old troops still
have boots on the ground.

“Local residents who think they may have found a new invasive plant can
contact the Oregon Invasive Species Hotline (www.oregoninvasivehotline.org
or call toll free 1-866-INVADER) to report the location,” Plaeger said. “This is
a handy tool for people who want to help out but don’t want to get trained in
how to use the iMapInvasives tool.”

The watershed council and the national forest will offer an invasive species
workshop in June to familiarize local residents with some of the plants that
pose new threats to the area. The workshop will be advanced in the June
Mountain Times.

“The more people who can recognize and report these plants, the better,”
Plaeger said. “That improves our chance to catch them before they become a
problem in our forests, meadows, or stream side areas.”

For more information on how to use iMapInvasives visit
http://orbic.pdx.edu/invasives.html which includes FAQs and training videos.

In the meantime, the war against invaders continues.