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See also: Pest Alerts - Vegetable Pests for more fact sheets

See also: Early Detection Species and Awareness Species

See also: WGA's 'Top 50 Invasive Species in the West' offers first regional report for more information

The Colorado Division of Wildlife is monitoring the state's waters for the introduction of an aggressive invasive species, the rusty crayfish. Rusty crayfish were found for the first time in Colorado during routine sampling operations in 2009 in the Yampa River drainage between Steamboat Springs and the town of Yampa. Because of their larger size and more aggressive nature, rusty crayfish can impact fish populations by consuming small fish and fish eggs, and negatively impact fish and spread unwanted aquatic plants by aggressively harvesting underwater plant beds. Learn more how to identify the rusty crayfish, how to stop the spread and how to report sightings.

The first section of the book includes information about how tourism-related infrastructure and activities promote biological invasions, including key pathways for non-native invasive species introductions. This section provides case studies of different organisms that are known to be introduced and/or promoted by tourism in different ecosystems or regions. The second section elaborates on known and potential impacts of invasive species on tourism and recreation, including how they may affect, positively or negatively, the economic revenue from tourism, tourist access, recreation, aesthetic values and tourists’ perceptions. The last section focuses on management and policy, covering aspects of how visitors perceive invasive species and their willingness to manage them, biosecurity measures to prevent invasion related to tourism, as well as potential policy options moving forward. The book draws on a number of examples across multiple taxa, landscapes and regions of the world.

Citation: Barros, A., Shackleton, R., Rew, L. J., Pizarro, C., Pauchard, A. (Eds.). (2022). Tourism, Recreation and Biological Invasions. CABI.

Northern pike are native to Alaska, Canada, and much of the central and eastern continental United States. Genetic evidence reveals the role of human transport in the spread of invasive northern pike in the Columbia River basin.

Potatoes and oak trees don’t have a lot in common, but there is one thing, and it isn’t good – a fungal-like plant pathogen in the genus Phytophthora. One of the many invasive pathogens contained in this genus, P. infestans, was responsible for the Irish potato famine. Since the mid-1990s, though, Phytophthora has been attacking forest trees along the West Coast, with the pathogen P. ramorum, also known as "sudden oak death" (SOD). SOD was first detected in the San Francisco Bay Area; it has since spread throughout California. In 2001, SOD was discovered in southwest Oregon where it infected tanoaks trees. The discovery led to the formation of an interagency team that included researchers from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University (OSU), to develop strategies to mitigate the impacts of SOD.

This section can help you determine what items can be brought into the U.S. Bringing food and other items back from your travels could impact the health and safety of American agriculture and natural resources. For example, travelers cannot bring in most fresh fruits and vegetables because they can carry plant pests or diseases. Just one pest could devastate multiple agricultural industries.

Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) is an exotic, invasive, wood-boring insect that infests and kills native North American ash trees, both in forests and landscape plantings. With EAB now in several areas of the Show-Me State - and its ability to hitchhike on firewood - the probability of it spreading to noninfected areas in the state is high.

Although not yet detected here, thousand cankers disease (TCD) is a potentially fatal disease of black walnut, caused by the walnut twig beetle (Pityophthorus juglandis) and an associated fungus (Geosmithia morbida). TCD could easily spread to Missouri from the several eastern and western states where TCD is already present. You can help minimize the chances of spreading TCD by following these steps:

• Don't move firewood
• Don't transport walnut for woodworking (including buying walnut wood over the Internet)
• Promptly report dead or dying walnut trees

Insects and diseases that are damaging and killing trees across the contiguous United States are reducing the ability of the nation's forests to capture and store climate-changing carbon dioxide, according to a new study. The study – published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change – found that forests damaged by insects sequestered 69% less carbon than undamaged forests. Those affected by disease sequestered 28% less carbon. In total, the study found that the damage currently being caused by insects and diseases across the contiguous US is reducing the sequestration potential of America’s forests by roughly 50 million tons of carbon dioxide each year – the equivalent of emissions from more than 10 million cars.