An official website of the United States government.
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers have identified the "least wanted" aquatic invasive species (AIS) that present an imminent threat to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River region. In 2013, the Governors and Premiers committed to take priority action on the transfer of these species to and within the region. Since then, the states and provinces have taken more than 50 separate actions to restrict these high-risk AIS, and the US federal government has similarly restricted four of the species. See also: Aquatic Invasive Species for more resources.
Invasive Species Resources
Provides access to all site resources, with the option to search by species common and scientific names. Resources can be filtered by Subject, Resource Type, Location, or Source.
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Search HelpConference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers.
Louisville Water Company.
Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
USDA. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Based on years of experience and the latest science, APHIS developed a list of 59 pests and diseases that could pose a significant risk to U.S. food and agriculture resources. The list is not meant to be all-encompassing, but rather focus on the most impactful pests and diseases. USDA's goal remains to keep the U.S. free of these foreign pests and diseases.
National Environmental Science Programme (Australia). Threatened Species Recovery Hub.
New research by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub has shown that invasive or pest species are a problem for 1,257 threatened species in Australia, or about four out of five species. The research which has been published in the scientific journal Pacific Conservation Biology also identified the top ten invasive species based on how many threatened species they impact. Lead researcher Stephen Kearney from the University of Queensland said many people may be surprised at which species top the list. “Rabbits, a plant root disease and feral pigs are the top three pest species impacting Australia’s threatened species,” Mr Kearney said.
Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Marine Invasions Research Lab. National Exotic Marine and Estuarine Species Information System (NEMESIS).
Blue Accounting.
The species watch list identifies species that are likely to have a high or moderate ecological and/or socioeconomic impact if they established in or spread to new locations in the Great Lakes Basin. The watch list was compiled using several regional risk assessment sources and was developed as part of the Aquatic Invasive Species Interstate Surveillance Framework for the U.S. Waters of the Great Lakes.
University of Georgia. Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health.
Includes invasive species by category for insects, diseases, plants, and animals.
See also: Invasive Species Status Report by Congressional District
DOI. United States Geological Survey.
Invasive species are a subset of non-native (or alien) species, and knowing what species are non-native to a region is a first step to managing invasive species. People have been compiling non-native and invasive species lists ever since these species started causing harm, yet national non-native species lists are neither universal, nor common. Non-native species lists serve diverse purposes: watch lists for preventing invasions, inventory and monitoring lists for research and modeling, regulatory lists for species control, and nonregulatory lists for raising awareness. This diversity of purpose and the lists’ variation in geographic scope make compiling comprehensive lists of established (or naturalized) species for large regions difficult. However, listing what species are non-native in an area helps measure Essential Biodiversity Variables for invasive species monitoring and mount an effective response to established non-native species. In total, 1,166 authoritative sources were reviewed to compile the first comprehensive non-native species list for three large regions of the United States: Alaska, Hawaii, and the conterminous United States (lower 48 States). The list contains 11,344 unique names: 598 taxa for Alaska, 5,848 taxa for Hawaii, and 6,675 taxa for the conterminous United States.
The list is available to the public from U.S. Geological Survey ScienceBase, and the intent, though not a guarantee, is to update the list as non-native species become established in, or are eliminated from, the United States. The list has been used to annotate non-native species occurrence records in the U.S. Geological Survey all-taxa mapping application, Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON).
Open-File Report 2018-1156, 15 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181156.
New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations.
Mid-Atlantic Panel on Aquatic Invasive Species.
New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
A regulation was adopted in 2014 that prohibits or regulates the possession, transport, importation, sale, purchase and introduction of select invasive species. The purpose of this regulation is to help control invasive species, a form of biological pollution, by reducing the introduction of new and spread of existing populations.