Hi, you're listening to Cultivate
Curiosity, a.
Podcast that inspires the next generation
to stay curious.
Cultivate Curiosity is brought to you by.
The Emerald Coast Science Center, a
nonprofit, interactive science museum and
steam educational facility in Fort Juan
Beach, Florida.
This podcast is perfect for anyone curious
about the world we live in, because.
You never know what we'll talk about
next.
Hello, my name is Harley, and I'm
an educator, and the community affairs
coordinator are here at the Emerald Coast
Science Center.
And hi, I'm Jacie, the social media
coordinator.
And hi, I'm Diane.
I'm the director.
And welcome to Cultivate Curiosity, a
podcast put out by the Emerald Coast
Science Center.
And today we're going to be talking
about invasive species in Florida.
I'd like to start out by saying
we might sound a little bit better
today because we have some brand new
podcasting equipment, thanks to the Air
Force Research Laboratory.
And it's also really great for all
three of us to be back together
again.
We're finishing up a very busy summer
here at the Science Center, and we
were all going in different you know,
you've had Jacie by yourself a lot,
carrying the weight for the team or
depending on whether Harley was out of
town or I was out of town.
So thank you, Jacie, for keeping the
podcast going over the summer.
Yeah, even though I don't like listening
to my own voice, I can edit
it.
Yeah, I don't like that either.
Yeah, I don't like to do that
either.
All right, so let's dig into the
invasive species.
So we're all here because Florida is
such a wonderful place to live with
such a great temperate climate.
And so humans aren't the only ones
that like a climate like that.
An invasive species can be plants,
animals, or other living organisms,
including microbes, living in the area
where they do not naturally exist or
whose introduction causes is likely to
cause economic or environmental harm or
harm to human health.
Invasive species are spread primarily by
human activities, often unintended.
An invasive species can be introduced to
an area by ship, ballast, water, firewood,
accidental release, and by people.
So, just as we said, why Florida?
It's because we have this wonderful
temperate climate that attracts visitors
and out of state transplants for decades.
But it isn't just the people that
are moving to the state from faraway
locations.
Florida is plagued by more than 500
nonnative plants and animal species.
Some of these animals are wrecking HOVAC
on delicate ecosystems around the state.
While not all of these are nonnative
species cause harm, many pose serious
threats to the environment, economy, and
even our health.
Some species simply compete with local
wildlife for resources or prey on other
animals, while others have the potential
to be deadly to humans and pets.
Because Florida's climate is so
hospitable, invasive species cause more of
a crisis here than anywhere else in
the continental United States.
The fact that florida serves as a
point of entry for almost three fourths
of the plants imported into the United
states.
And the majority of the world's reptile
trade compounds the problem.
All of Florida's native habitats marine,
freshwater and terrestrial, are threatened
by invasive species.
So let's dig into what some of
those animals might be.
And some of them are right here
in our area, and some of them
are a little bit further down south
in the state.
But as we continue to warm, they're
going to start migrating up here.
So we might be seeing them in
a couple of years.
So let's start with feral hogs.
They have been around for a long
time.
They're prolific breeders and can maintain
sizable populations.
Even though they're a popular hunting
target, the hogs mostly eat plants.
Their habit of rooting around the ground
causes considerable damage to native
ecosystems.
They are also extremely aggressive and
pose a threat to humans.
Wild hogs can reach weights of more
than 150 pounds and measure five to
6ft long.
How did they get here?
Florida's feral hogs can trace their
ancestors back to the Spanish
conquistadors.
In the 16th century, early European
settlers brought livestock, including
pigs, and some escaped.
Florida is estimated to have more than
500,000 wild hogs.
And we do actually have these here.
They are on the eglin reservation lands,
and they are one of the few
animals that have an open hunting season.
Deer season, you have turkey season.
These are different times of the years
that you have to get a hunting
license to be able to get out
there and hunt them.
But feral hogs are open season all
the time because we really want to
get rid of those.
And if you're driving from knifeville or
valparizo into fort walton, sometimes you
can see them on the side of
the road.
I've seen them a couple times as
well as the deer, but the hogs,
I'm always shocked when I see them,
and then they run into the woods.
My daughter's an environmental scientist,
and she does a lot of wetland
delineations, and she's out in the woods
all the time, and she brings me
back all these bones.
And she has a beautiful hog skull
that she brought the other day.
But that's one of her biggest fears,
is being out in the woods, walking
around doing delineations or mitigations
or stormwater or whatever and coming upon
a feral hog.
They can be very aggressive.
Okay, so let's talk about one we
don't have here yet.
Hopefully we never get, especially because
a lot of people have a really
bad feeling about this type of animal.
And that would be the Burmese pythons.
So these are non venomous constrictors,
but they can grow to be enormous
lengths.
They can reach a length of 26ft
and weigh more than 200 pounds.
The average size of a Burmese python
removed in Florida is about eight to
10ft in the everglades large number of
burmese pythons prey on endangered birds
and their eggs, along with frogs and
native species.
They have decimated the ecosystem within
the Everglades.
They're an apex predator and they don't
know there's nobody there to take them
out.
I mean, they've seen Burmese pythons that
have swallowed baby alligators before as
well as oh yeah, and deer.
So it's a huge issue.
They've really changed the ecosystem in
the Everglades.
They've wiped out the whole bottom of
the food pyramid down there.
But how did they get here?
They invaded Florida when snakes that were
kept as pets were released or escaped
or thrived in Florida.
Because of the warm predator free
conditions, tens of thousands of evasive
Burmese pythons are estimated to be
present in the Everglades.
Please be aware that these are not
the same type of snake as a
ball python.
The ball python is a common pet
snake and we have several of those
at the science center.
They can only grow to be three
to 5ft, and they are not invasive
and they are not wiping out the
ecosystem.
But Florida does have a Burmese python
challenge hunt.
Every year they give out cash prizes.
You can register and take a little
short course and go down there and
see how many python you can collect.
Just finished up August 13.
Yeah, August 13 was the finish of
this year's python challenge.
So they haven't released the results yet,
but you can keep your eyes open
for that.
There's usually a lot of newspaper
articles about it.
So check the news in the next
couple of weeks and we'll see.
I mean, I know one time name
was like a 15 foot python.
So it's like the longest and the
heaviest and like the most they give
different prizes for.
So now we're going to talk about
an amphibian, a cane toad.
So these are also called bufotodes and
they're dangerous animals because they
secrete a toxic substance when bitten.
Dogs are the most frequent victims and
can suffer from seizures when exposed to
these secretions.
They eat almost everything, including
native frogs, insects and fish.
They even eat pet food.
If you have pet food that's left
out, and we all know we're not
supposed to leave pet food outside because
it also attracts some native animals like
bears.
These toads are often confused with the
native southern toad, which is not toxic.
They got here because they were introduced
to Florida to control agricultural pest in
sugar cane in the 1930s and the
1940s.
It is believed that the current
populations are a result of pet trade
escapes and releases in the 1950s and
60s.
We did do a Curiosity live last
year, so you can check that out
that we talked about the difference
between a cade toad and a native
southern toad.
And I think I even caught a
southern toad in my yard for that
episode.
So those guys are supposed to be
here and then let's talk about Iguanas
because I think we always see on
instagram and TikTok, the frozen iguanas.
Yeah, they're falling from the trees
whenever it gets cold in south Florida.
So green iguanas have been steadily making
their way north since the first appeared
in the south Florida in the 1960s.
They're big spiny lizards that can damage
structures when they dig burrows beneath
the foundations.
And they poop everywhere.
For the most part, they eat plants,
but they can also eat snails and
bird eggs.
They can grow up to 5ft long,
and they can weigh up to 17
pounds.
So originally they were brought to Florida
as pets or inadvertently on ships and
have begun to flourish in the state.
More than 3000 green iguanas have been
spotted in southeast Florida alone since
the center for invasive species started
tracking these sightings in 2005.
And we went to the keys during
the pandemic, we took our boat down
there.
And so they are everywhere.
I mean, they are everywhere.
In key west, there's a state park
that we went to and they were
all over the place.
And we went and rode bikes by
the cemetery, and there was tons of
iguanas.
I mean, they can't even manage the
population down there.
They're so prolific.
They're everywhere down there.
And then the last one I'm going
to share with you today is giant
African land snails.
They're huge snails.
They eat almost every kind of native
plant species.
And when they can't find enough calcium
in the environment to build their shells,
they eat stucco off the buildings and
paint off your cars.
They also carry a parasite that can
cause meningitis in humans.
Miami residents have been working since
2011 to eradicate the species, and
sightings are beginning to become rare and
rare considering at about six months of
age, they can lay an average of
100 eggs per month for the next
eight to ten years.
So it's fortunate they're being close to
being eradicated.
So there was the original infestation in
the 1960s was from a released pet.
The current infestation detected in 2011
was from snails intended for use in
religious rituals.
All right, so the next one I
want to share with you guys is
Cuban tree frogs.
These frogs prey on Florida's much smaller
native tree frogs and small snakes.
And their tadpoles compete with native
tadpole species for space and resources.
They are hard to identify because they
can be white, gray, green, or brown
and can even change colors.
Some cumin tree frogs have dark streaks
or splotches on their backs, while others
are nearly solid in color with no
markings.
So how did they get here?
They were probably brought to Florida in
the 1920s as hitchhikers on cargo ships.
And since then, they have become major
pests.
They invade toilets and can clog drains.
They even invade power boxes and cause
power outages.
Okay, so you should look in your
toilet.
Yeah, I feel like most people look
in their toilets or not their toilet,
but if they're at a stop or
something like that, traveling like you're
thinking like a snake or something is
going to come out.
But now you have to worry about
frogs.
Frog in my toilet, I would throw
it out.
Yeah.
Harley has a thing about frogs, so.
The next one is lionfish.
We all kind of know a lot
about lionfish, but they are voracious
eaters and prey on smaller fish.
They hunt around coral reefs and in
seagrass beds.
Because of their venomous spines, they
have few natural predators.
Lionfish upset the balance of the coral
reefs off the coast of Florida and
the Caribbean as they eat into native
fish populations.
So how did they get here?
It's thought that lionfish were first
introduced to the waters of the western
Atlantic Ocean when aquarium owners dumped
them.
Native to the Pacific, lionfish were first
spotted here in the 1980s and have
spread through the Caribbean and Gulf of
Mexico.
Recent estimates of lionfish densities
show the populations continuing to grow,
with the highest estimates reporting over
1000 linefish per acre in some locations.
We do have a lionfish exhibit here
at the Science center where you can
learn more about these invasive species
and see real lionfish up close without
being in danger as their venomous minds
can also be harmful to humans too.
Just like the Burmese python challenge.
There's also a large lionfish challenge
here that happens during May.
We normally participate in it as a
vendor to help educate people about
invasive species, but it's a wonderful
event.
They catch thousands of lionfish.
I think this year it was close.
To 20,000 lionfish yeah, at the lionfish
tournament.
And they also have a restaurant week
that goes along with it where different
restaurants will serve up lionfish dishes.
They're apparently really delicious.
Yeah, I think it's just a hard.
Process to get the spines off and
you don't get a lot of meat.
From a lion fish, but I guess
it's good because then you're eating them
and not having them out.
Also dissected them a couple of times.
Here the kiddos see what's in their
stomach, see what they're eating, see how
much a variety of foods they eat
and how damaging they can be to.
Our ecosystem and our refrigerator smell.
Yes.
And the smells are not.
The next one is green mussels.
The Asian green mussel has been popping
up on Florida's coast since 2004.
They grow in tightly packed beds and
can smother native oyster beds.
They can also cause problems with shipping
and infrastructure as the mollusks weigh
down buoys clog intake valves and damage
boats.
So how did they get here?
The green mussel is originally from the
Indian and Pacific Oceans but was
introduced into the Gulf of Mexico in
the 1990s, presumably as larvae trapped in
cargo and tinker ballast water, which
large ships take in to increase stability
during transit and release upon arrival.
Green mussels were first introduced in
Tampa Bay in 1999.
The next one I want to talk
about is tegu lizards.
So another large lizard species, South
American tegus are known to burrow into
the turtle and alligator nests and eat
the eggs.
While they're not aggressive to people,
tegus pose a threat to native reptiles
and ground nesting birds.
They can grow up to 4ft long
and weigh up to 20 pounds.
How did they get here?
Tegus were introduced through the pet
trade and have established breeding
populations in Hillsborough and Miamidade
counties.
Though current population estimates are
not available for this species, evidence
suggests a possible expansion of their
population in Florida.
And so this one is kind of
special because we do have an Argentine
black and white tegu named RJ that
is at the science center.
So due to her being an invasive
species, we had to work with the
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission to obtain the permit to have
her at the science center.
And she has some strict rules.
She cannot be held or touched by
anyone other than those employed by the
science center.
And she had to have a very
specific enclosure.
But you can still see her in
her enclosure by the front desk when
you come for a visit.
But she may be hiding sometimes as.
She'S like she said, they burrow.
But what I love about this is
she was donated to us by a
family in Birmingham and there are zero
restrictions in Alabama on this.
Know, I met the guy halfway up
in Georgiana in the parking lot at
the Dollar General to pick her up
because nobody in Alabama cares.
But, you know, I had to have
all of my paperwork from Fish and
Wildlife with me because as soon as
I drove into Florida, then, yeah, it
makes a difference.
You got like, pulled over exactly.
Why do you have this ticket?
Yeah, well, here's my paperwork.
It says I can have and she
also had to be pit tagged.
Yes.
So she had to be microchipped so.
That we could which the Gulf Area
Care Center was very generous and gave
us a pit tag so that we
could have her pit tagged in time.
Yeah, that was awesome of them.
All right, I have two more.
So feral cats carry toxoplasmosis a
parasite that can kill manatees and other
mammals.
It is urged that pet owners keep
their pets indoors in areas with feral
cats.
Feral cat colonies also destroy wild bird
populations.
A free raging domestic cat can kill
100 birds per year.
Unlike most predators in the wild, a
pet cat that is being fed will
stay in one area and continue to
hunt even when prey populations decline.
So how did they get here?
Wherever humans go, they bring their cats.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission estimates that the population
of owned cats in Florida is about
9.6 million and the feral cat population
may be between 6.3 to 9.6 million.
And if you do live in this
area and you're willing to potentially put
together an event that is a spay
and neuter event that people can help
catch these feral cats and have a
day where we spay and neuter all
of them, maybe vets and vet techs
can put something together that's going to
help decrease the feral cat population.
Yes, because they did that in Gainesville,
right.
And I mean, we see feral cats
all the time, even here at the
Science Center.
They're just kind of everywhere.
And what they do is they tip
their ear.
So if you see a cat that's
just a feral cat and they have
the tip of their ear cut off,
that means that they have been spayed
or neutered and re released.
The last one for our animal species
is the red eared sliders.
So, Red eared sliders are natives of
the Mississippi River Valley as far north
as Missouri and Illinois, south to the
Delta, and as far east as southern
West Virginia.
They cause negative impacts on the
ecosystems they occupy because they have
certain advantages over the native
populations, such as a lower age at
maturity, higher fecundity, the ability to
produce an abundance of offspring rates,
and larger body size, which gives them
a competitive advantage at basking and
nesting sites, as well as when exploiting
food resources.
They also transmit diseases and displace
the other turtle species with which they
compete for food and breeding space.
Florida banned both the sale and
possession of Red eared sliders in July
of 2007.
So how did they get here?
Red eared sliders are not native to
Florida and have become an invasive
species due to pet owners releasing them
into the wild aquatic ecosystems of
Florida.
They have been sold by the hundreds
of millions in dime stores and pet
shops throughout the United States.
And it is the most commonly exported
reptile species, with over 52 million
being exported from the United States from
1989 through 1997.
As a result, this adaptable species has
become established in many areas of the
world where they can compete with native
turtle species and prey upon fish.
So we talked a lot about some
animal species and invasive animal
species.
There are still more, even though we
only listed a few, but there's also
invasive plant species.
The forests of southeastern United States
are increasingly facing the impacts of non
native invasive species.
Many invasive plants affect forest health,
productivity, access and use, and forest
management costs, and limit species
diversity on millions of acres of
southeastern forests.
These plants displace native plants and
associated wildlife and can alter natural
processes such as fire regimes and
hydrology.
As foresters landowners and land managers,
we must be proactive and meet this
issue head on to maintain the health,
function and long term productivity of our
forests.
So I mentioned invasive and nonnative.
And so just to clarify what the
difference is between those, a non native
invasive plants are essentially weeds in
the woods or in other natural areas.
Non native which is the plants that
are not originally from the Florida United
States.
These plants are often introduced
intentionally or accidentally by human
activity.
The most common source of plant
introduction in Florida are import for
ornamental horticultural purposes,
introduction for agricultural purposes,
and accidental introduction.
Approximately one third of the plant
species growing on their own without
cultivation in Florida are non native.
Invasive plants are plants that escape
cultivation, become established in a
forest or natural area, and start
expanding and reproducing on their own.
Once established, these plants often alter
native plant communities, outcompete and
kill native species, or otherwise affect
natural ecosystems.
So main difference to take away from
that non native they're not from here,
but they're not altering that much or
really anything to a harm invasive not
from here, but they're causing harm.
Some invasive plants here in Florida going
to name a couple of them, but
there are a ton that you can
reference.
The first one is Coggin grass.
This is a tall about two to
5ft perennial grass with bright yellow
green foliage.
The leaf blades have a mid vein
which is clearly offset to one side
and serrated edges or toothed edges.
The rhizomes are hard, scaly and cream
colored with sharply pointed tips.
The seed head is fuzzy, white and
plumelike.
Coggin grass is an invasive nonnative
grass that occurs in Florida and several
other southeastern states.
A pest in 73 countries and considered
to be one of the top ten
worst weeds in the world, coggin grass
affects pine productivity and survival,
wildlife habitat, recreation, native
plants, fire behavior, site management
costs, and more.
Another one is the air potato vine.
The air potato vine is native to
Asia, Africa and northern Australia.
It was introduced into the United States
and Alabama during the late 17 hundreds
and then into southern Florida in the
early 19 hundreds.
Today, air potato is present in all
67 Florida counties.
Additionally, Air potato has been reported
in Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
The vine grows rapidly climbing and
forming dense blankets that smother
understory plant species.
It can persist in poor soil types
and produce large numbers of bubbles or
tubers from which new vines sprout in
central and south Florida.
It is considered one of the most
common weeds in the natural area.
In Florida, air potato vines sprout in
the spring from underground tubers and
bulbals that dropped during the previous
growing season.
Vines cannot support their own weight and
will climb vegetation or any structure to
reach sunlight, which is why they can
be really dangerous.
So what are some management tools that
are going on?
Well, chemical control is costly and
requires repeat nozzle and foliar sprays
over several years.
Damage or death to non target plants
often occurs during these treatments as
well.
Additionally, new vines often continue to
sprout from underground tubers.
When herbicide treatments cease, then you
have mechanical control, which mechanical
control of air potatoes is labor intensive
and time consuming.
Basically this means we're trying to dig
out the tubers and bubbles and that's
exhausting.
Well, there's biological control and this
is where the air potato beetle enters
the story.
Biological control was determined to be
the most promising management strategy for
this invasive plant after the discovery of
a liloceris chennai, which is a beetle,
there's a Chinese and a Nephilise biotype.
This beetle feeds exclusively on the air
potato leaves.
For over ten years.
The Air Potato Biological control program.
There has been a collaborative effort
between the FDAX Division of Plant
Industry, which is the Florida Department
of Agricultural and Consumer Sciences and
the US.
Department of Agricultural's agricultural
Research Service and Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service and the
University of Florida Institute of Food
and Agricultural Sciences.
So lots of people working together to
try to get rid of these air
potato plants and also rear and raise
these air potato beetles.
The release and establishment of this
beetle in Florida has resulted in massive
reduction in vine biomass, the Bulbal
production and spread of the vine, and
this program is considered one of the
major successes in the field of biological
control.
If you are interested in learning more
about that specific work as well as
other invasive plants, you can go to
the FDAX gov website and that's FDACS
gov.
So why should we care about these
plants?
There are many reasons to be concerned
about the expanding problem of invasive
species.
Whether your primary interest in forestry
is timber production, aesthetics,
recreation, wildlife or a combination of
many benefits, all aspects of forest
management can be affected by these plants
invasions.
For example, approximately 46% of the
federally listed threatened and endangered
species in the United States are
considered to be imperiled in part due
to the impacts of invasive species.
Economists have estimated that across the
globe, 3.5 trillion may be lost annually
to the impacts and management of invasive
species.
This figure includes impacts by introduced
plants, animals, diseases, agricultural
weeds and others.
So altogether, several of these species
either possess the potential to or have
already begun impacting various forest
product industries.
An establishment example is that of Kudzu,
which infests an estimated 7 million acres
in the southeast and costs approximately
500 million in lost farm and timber
product annually.
The most recent example of this is
the impact the Japanese climbing fern
infestations have begun to have on the
pine straw production industry in Florida.
Pine straw producers have had to abandon
least pine strands in some cases where
the Japanese climbing fern infestation
made harvest of a clean and legally
saleable product impossible.
As a state, Florida is at risk
for invasion for many reasons.
Our subtropical climate, the number and
importance of our shipping ports, the
extent and importance of the plant based
industries in the state and the highly
transitional population, coupled with
other factors, facilitate the
introduction, escape and spread of these
problem plants.
In Florida, approximately 30 million in
taxpayer dollars are spent annually on
invasive plant management in natural areas
and waterways.
So what do you do if you
find an invasive species?
Reporting observations of an invasive
species helps the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission manage
nonnative species.
The best reports of nonnative species are
credible reports.
These are reports that the species in
question can be verified and all necessary
data has been included.
And you can learn more about this
at I've got one.
It's ivegot one as in the number
one.
And I think that's all for our
podcast today.
So thank you all for listening, and
we'll see you in two weeks.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's
episode of Cultivate Curiosity.
If you have any questions, feel free
to email us at socialmedia@ecscience.org.
Tune in for our next episode in
two weeks.