At the invitation of Quogue Wildlife Refuge, LIISMA co-hosted an aquatic invasive species training on September 29 with the Refuge. Bill Jacobs, Abby Bezrutscyk, and Melody Penny of LIISMA joined Marisa Nelson, Cara Fernandes, Alicia Crohan, and Tonito Valderrama for a beautiful fall day on Old Ice Pond.
Given the diverse wetland ecosystems within the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, including ponds and bogs with uncommon vegetation, both the Refuge and LIISMA want to make sure the waterbodies remain invasive-free. After our short presentation on aquatic invasive species identification, LIISMA accompanied the Refuge staff on a paddle around Old Ice Pond. We demonstrated the use of the rake toss method to sample underwater vegetation, and entered data into iMapInvasives through Simple Aquatic Survey (SAS) Pro.
We were pleased to not detect any aquatic invasive species on this visit (and even more pleased to incidentally spot an American bittern among the cattails). Quogue Wildlife Refuge staff are well-equipped to protect their waterbodies from invasive species, and we are always happy to work with them.
If your agency or organization would like a similar training on sampling aquatic invasive species in any one of Long Island’s high-priority waterbodies, please get in touch with Abby at abby.liisma@gmail.com.
