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Find non-invasive plant alternatives that may be appropriate in your region.

The AIM campaign that focuses on providing information and best practices to manage The Organisms in Trade (OIT) pathway. The OIT pathway is one of the main avenues by which non-native aquatic species become established in waterways. Many of the aquatic plants and animals available in the marketplace can negatively impact ecosystems, economies, and public health when introduced to new freshwater habitats. AIM was developed by a collaboration of researchers and outreach specialists led by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Illinois Natural History Survey.

A variety of organizations have developed educational materials on AIM. They can be used to learn more and teach others about these harmful plants and animals.

Predicting the next invasive species allows us to take action before they reach our waterways—an economically and environmentally smarter approach than responding after they’ve arrived. To get a jump on potential invaders, scientists have developed methods that pinpoint the risk a species poses to specific environments based on factors like history of invasion, its ability to survive in similar habitats, and how difficult it is to control. Using these tools and the information they provide, natural resource managers, environmental educators, and individuals who buy and sell live aquatic organisms can make more informed decisions on how to protect their waterways from potential AIM.

The federal Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force approves state and species management plans to help guide work on the ground across the USA.  These plans feature the western states and species specific plans.
See also: Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force - Control

Provides individuals with the information and tools they need to help prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species commonly found in trade. Water gardeners, aquarium hobbyists, retailers, anglers, teachers, wholesalers and more can use these resources to learn about invasive species and identify alternative organisms that are safe to buy and sell.

The materials found here are part of Menace to the West, an educational resource for teachers, informal educators, parents, and students on aquatic invasive species. These materials are designed to teach K-12 students how invasive species can do untold damage when they move to new territory. Kits, resources, and full lessons are available.

See also: Species Guides for more resources

See also: Species Guides for more resources

See also: Species Guides for more resources

See also: Species Guides for more resources

See also: Species Guides for more resources

See also: Species Guides for more resources

Scroll down for 25 Most Harmful Nonindigenous Aquatic Species in the West

The Bureau of Land Management has released the final programmatic environmental impact statement for fuels reduction and rangeland restoration in the Great Basin. This programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) is intended to further efforts to conserve and restore sagebrush communities within a 223 million-acre area that includes portions of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah.

Sagebrush communities in the Great Basin are a vital part of Western working landscapes and are home to over 350 species of plants and wildlife. Intact sagebrush communities are disappearing within the Great Basin due to increased large and severe wildfires, the spread of invasive annual grasses, and the encroachment of pinyon-juniper. The Great Basin region is losing sagebrush communities faster than they can reestablish naturally. Fuels reduction and rangeland restoration treatments can reduce fire severity, increase sagebrush communities' resistance to invasive annual grasses and improve their ability to recover after wildfires.

Officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced in June 2017 that DOI would coordinate with the Western Governors' Association, states, tribes, federal agencies, and other partners in a project to help strengthen existing efforts to address invasive mussels. The actions described in the 2017 report, Safeguarding the West from Invasive Species, Actions to Strengthen Federal, State, and Tribal Coordination to Address Invasive Mussels [PDF, 1.3 MB], vary from policy and program reviews to on-the-ground efforts to prevent, contain, and control invasive mussels. One recommendation in Safeguarding the West was the development of a reference manual to facilitate rapid response activities in the event of mussel introductions in the Columbia River Basin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently finalized and released this manual, Dreissenid Mussel Rapid Response in the Columbia River Basin: Recommended Practices to Facilitate Endangered Species Act Section 7 Compliance (Oct 2019) [PDF, 4.3 MB].

See also: Quagga and Zebra Mussels for more information

Cattle grazing on a nearly half mile wide targeted strip of cheatgrass near Beowawe, Nevada, created a firebreak that helped limit a rangeland fire to just 54 acres this past August compared to rangeland fires that more commonly race across thousands of acres of the Great Basin. This "targeted grazing" firebreak and eight others are part of an evaluation project being managed by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), partnering with other federal, state and local agencies and local cattle ranchers in Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. These demonstration sites are being studied so the concept's efficacy and environmental impacts can be uniformly evaluated and compared.

Cheatgrass, also known as downy brome, is an invasive annual that dominates more than 100 million acres of the Great Basin in the western U.S. Germinating each winter, cheatgrass grows furiously in spring and dies in early summer, leaving the range carpeted in golden dry tinder. The Great Basin now has the nation's highest wildfire risk, and rangeland fires are outpacing forest fires when it comes to acreage destroyed.