Montana moving forward on seeking houndstongue control

A state advisory council is making recommendations to the federal government that could help with a growing problem in the area - the invasive weed houndstongue.

The Montana Invasive Species Council has issued recommendations on actions to try to obtain approval to use a natural control on houndstongue, which is a non-native plant that is expanding in the area and has a major presence in Beaver Creek Park.

The council has proposals requesting the federal government allow introducing the weevil Mogulones crucifer to control the weed, which has become an increasing problem in the area.

Around 10 to 20 years ago, the region suffered some drought, Hill County Weed Control District Supervisor Terry Turner said. With the drought, he added, a lot of people moved their livestock to the western part of the state for grazing.

Houndstongue already was present there.

When the cattle were brought back, the houndstongue plant came with them and arrived in north-central Montana, Turner said. 

"The houndstongue has little burrs on it, about the size of an eraser head - the burrs attach to everything - that got drug all the way to Hill County and we've got it all the way through Beaver Creek Park. We've got some areas up in Beaver Creek Park as many plants as 27 per square yard up in that area," he said.

He added that some crews in Beaver Creek Park said the only thing that is green up in Beaver Creek Park right now is the houndstongue and the water and poison hemlock, which are also poisonous.

"One thing you gotta watch out for, the plant looks like a hound's tongue, a dog that sticks his tongue out, that's what the leaves look like on the ground and learn to identify the plant and the top of the plant there will be like four little nutlets with kind of a spike coming out of the center of the nutlets," Turner said. "The nutlets are the seeds and they are the size of a pencil eraser and they stick onto everything. So if you have a plant like that, bag it up, throw it away or burn it, but if you get on that your property it spreads rapidly."

Houndstongue is considered to be harmful to any livestock out there as the burr part of the plant will stick to anything. The houndstongue won't kill the livestock right away, but will begin to shut down their internal organs and they will die at a later date.

He said the problem is that when there is a snowstorm houndstongue might be the only thing green sticking up above the snow and the livestock might go over there and graze it off.

"The big concern is that we have it coming out of the Bear Paw  Mountains that goes all the way down Beaver Creek, comes down Bullhook drainage, we're finding at the top of the hill because of all the little animals that go through it the burrs stick to their body," he said.

Turner was at a Fall Weed Coordinators training meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Lewistown and said that houndstongue was numbered one of the highest-priority weeds in the state of Montana to get under control. 

The Mogulones crucifer weevil - a small beetle - has been introduced in Canada and it has nearly wiped out the houndstongue up there, Turner. 

"The federal Fish and Wildlife (agency) here in the United States has not given us permission to release that insect down here, and we're trying to. We've given them all the information on it," he said. "Chouteau County has a lot of houndstongue, not sure how much in Blaine (County), next door, but sure, they got it ... anywhere if you took cattle out of the area and transported it into other areas."

He added that houndstongue is biennial, so if the seed production can be stopped the plant will be under control.

He said what's happening is that they need the insect released right away to get ahead of the houndstongue because it's spreading faster than they can control it with herbicide 

"When you got something that goes through it and spreads it to a different area, the herbicides are effective on it, but there are so many seeds on that plant that it's being spread around. Every piece of brush that you go into ... has houndstongue in it near the Beaver Creek area," Turner said.

The Montana Invasive Species Council, which is working on getting approval for the weevil, was created in late 2014 through an executive order from Gov. Steve Bullock.

"The purpose of the council is to create a venue for all of our agencies both local, state and federal as well as our tribal land management agencies to come together and discuss a coordinated approach to invasive species for all (kinds of invasive species) in the state of Montana," Montana Invasive Species Council Chair Bryce Christiaens said. "Traditionally, we have had really silo programs, where the terrestrial folk work really well together and the aquatic folk work really well together and tree folk work really well together, but there wasn't a lot of interaction across those (groups), so our hope is that we would be able to get a better bang for our buck, essentially. We are talking about similar issues as far as vectors were spread and education and outreach materials were spread." 

In 2016, the Legislature approved a statute regulating the council and also gave the council additional duties, including convening science advisory panels on important invasive species issues were additional information was needed because stakeholders where asking for help to move particular issues forward, he said.

He said a science advisory panel already has convened.

  "The general principle (of these panels) is that we have issues where there is a tool or a method of finding invasive species out there that we need additional information on and people can't quite agree on how to implement or use the thing, use the particular tool in Montana or the U.S., in the case of Mogulones crucifer," Christiaens said. "So the purpose of that is to bring those stakeholders together, identify what questions we need answered around a particular issue and from those questions identify people that are experts in that field, not necessarily from Montana that we can bring them here and answer those questions and then have a discussion with us on the best steps moving forward."

In the case of Mogulones crucifer, they brought in a researcher from Canada who had done all of the work in order for this insect to be permitted in Canada and brought in a researcher from U.S. who had been in charge of doing all the research for the permit of the insect for the U.S. as well as the permitting agencies that would be making the decisions on whether or not to approve this insect in the U.S.

The Technical Advisory Committee included representatives of where these petitions of approval will, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Fish and Wildlife Agency. 

"From that panel, the next step identified what the agencies need is a petition on this insect, and the way the biology control program works in the U.S. is that we do a ton of testing on the insect to make sure that it will only feed or will only target the species that we want it to feed on, that it won't all of the sudden eat wheat or another ... plant or a sensitive or endangered species, and so we've done a lot of that work," Christiaens said. "All that information goes into a petition that goes to the technical advisory group, the technical advisory group reviews that information, makes a recommendation to USDA APHIS on whether they think the insect should be approved for release in the United States. Now, part of that process, USDA APHIS consults with the Official Fish and Wildlife service on any risks to endangered species."

He added that having all those people in a room was important because they all agreed a petition is necessary and the group should be moving forward with the petition by spring of next year. 

"We are working with the researcher in the U.S. to make sure that he has the funding that he needs to get that done by next spring and we are also moving forward with having established mitigation plans for areas where they think this insect is impacting endangered species in Washington and then having monitoring plans in place so we can track where the insect moves," he said.