Invasive Species Resources

Are you a crabber, waterman, or concerned citizen? We need your help to detect and assess the status of Chinese Mitten Crabs. The "Mitten Crab Watch" website provides information on the invasion of the mitten crab and allows users to more easily report catches.

Please help us detect live mitten crabs by reporting any sighting in North America. We are especially interested in collecting sightings from the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, Hudson River, and San Francisco Bay --- where the crab has been common in the past. Please visit the Mitten Crab Watch website to learn more about the crab and to report sightings.

A draft integrated letter report and programmatic environmental assessment has been developed to determine the economic and environmental impacts of federal participation in state-managed watercraft inspection programs along the Upper Missouri River Basin in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. Public comments on the draft EA will be accepted until March 2, 2021.

The existing watercraft inspection programs are managed collaboratively by the states of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, where watercraft transported along highways are inspected for the presence of aquatic invasive species and decontaminated when detected. If approved, federal participation in the program would be cost-shared (50 percent) with each of the states, and would employ a regional strategy to identify locations that would provide the greatest likelihood of preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species to reservoirs operated and maintained by the Corps in the Upper Missouri River Basin.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is announcing its plans for combatting the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) in New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio in 2020. "Just last year we declared eradication of ALB from Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, ending the city's 23-year-long battle with the beetle," said Osama El-Lissy, APHIS' Plant Protection and Quarantine Deputy Administrator. "This year, we've mapped out a sound strategy that will further our efforts to eliminate this pest from the remaining areas of this country where it still has a foothold."

Every year, APHIS evaluates and determines the most effective options to achieve ALB eradication. In 2020, the ALB program will focus on inspecting trees in quarantined areas in New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio, and removing infested trees at no cost to property owners. The program will not apply insecticide treatments this year. In addition, program officials will monitor for the beetle’s presence inside and around each area, respond to service calls, conduct training sessions for compliance agreement holders, and perform outreach.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has established a quarantine for European cherry fruit fly (ECFF) in New York. A portion of Niagara County was quarantined for the invasive fruit fly following the detection of 51 flies in 2017. As of January 2020, the quarantined area has been expanded to include all of Niagara, Erie, and Orleans Counties. APHIS and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) are working collaboratively on this detection. See also: Fruit Flies Quarantine for additional information.