Last week I had the opportunity to go to Voyageur Provincial Park (just east of Ottawa) and help with their European water chestnut control program.
European water chestnut is an invasive aquatic plant. As you can see below if there weren’t any control measures in place it would just spread and spread. This area is roughly 4 hectares in size.
I was in a small motor boat hand picking this plant. There were others in what are called cutter and collector boats; there were also others in chest waders hand picking.
This is the “seed” of the water chestnut plant which is in the sediment. It was first discovered at this park when a visitor stepped on the seed.
We filled many buckets and had a very successful day!
If you live near Ottawa or Montreal or are planning on being in the area, Voyageur Provincial Park is looking for volunteers to help them in the removal of this highly invasive plant. If you can help, contact Jennifer Jung at 613-674-2825 x: 223 or at [email protected] or Darryl White at [email protected]
Terri-Lee Reid
Terri-Lee Reid is a Freshwater Conservation Researcher at the Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF). She leads initiatives in researching, designing and delivering freshwater programs and advocating CWF’s freshwater positions to government, the public and other stakeholders.
