Biodiversity under siege, invasive animals and the National Park Service: A state of the knowledge report

Resnik, Jessica

Invasive species are a serious challenge for both urban and natural areas, including national parks. Their impacts are far-reaching; they displace native species and disrupt native ecosystems and ecological processes, and pose threats to sensitive cultural resources, the visitor experience, and to critical infrastructure. Additionally, invasive species often worsen the effects of other threats such as climate change, predator loss, and land-use changes. These effects ripple throughout the 417 sites of the National Park System and threaten the ability for the National Park Service (NPS) to achieve its legislated mission. Momentum has been building throughout the country and the NPS to more comprehensively address the threat posed by invasive species. A national approach by the NPS is needed to increase the effectiveness of preventing invasions, control and slow the spread of existing invasions, and provide a central hub to ensure that these efforts are coordinated and cost effective. However, previous efforts to develop a servicewide program to address invasive animals have not been able to gain traction. The 1999 Natural Resource Challenge, the ensuing Detailed Action Plan for Exotic Species, and a draft 2006 Invasive Species Action Plan all highlighted the need for an organized servicewide approach to address invasive animals. Yet, little has been done to actually implement these plans. The NPS Biological Resources Division (BRD) competed and received funding from the Servicewide Comprehensive Call SCC) starting in 2016 for a three-year project to develop an organizational framework to address invasive animal issues and solutions across the Service. This report takes the initial step in presenting the state of the knowledge of invasive animals in the NPS by summarizing the occurrence of invasive animals in parks and the needs and efforts at the park, regional, and national level to address them. The report summarizes the authorities and policies guiding invasive animal management (Chapter 1), provides a description of invasive animal efforts and organization at the national office (Chapter 2), and presents a 2016 snapshot of the information received from parks through the annual invasive annual data call (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 provides insights from interviews with staff in each regional office and Chapter 5 provides insights to park needs inferred from park foundation documents, park planning and environmental documents, and park project proposals. Chapter 6 examines the current early detection and response effort capacity of the NPS invasive plant program for lessons learned, and lastly, Chapter 7 summarizes the current state of data, information systems, and risk assessments in the NPS as relates to invasive species. Key points from the report are provided in the concluding chapter. The expressed purpose of this report is to provide insights that inform components of the NPS Strategic Invasive Animals Management SCC project from which the organizational framework and implementation plan will develop.

Biodiversity under siege, invasive animals and the National Park Service: A state of the knowledge report

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