LISTEN: WRFI News Feature — Pulling Invasive Wild Water Chestnut in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge

Invasive species continue to change our ecosystems. Recently I went to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge at the top of Cayuga Lake to help pull wild water chestnuts. It’s been in New York for a while but it just showed up in the Refuge this year. I’m going to share an audio postcard from that but first, here’s some of a conversation I had afterward with Amy Slentz of the Finger Lakes Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management. It’s called PRISM and it’s part of Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva. They work to reduce the spread of all kinds of invasive species not just aquatic ones like wild water chestnut. 

Slentz started by talking about another aquatic invasive that’s a problem in Seneca and Cayuga lakes.

A patch of wild water chestnut. July 19, 2023.(WRFI/Celia Clarke)

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