Recent editions of the Enterprise have included letters to the editor from readers disturbed over a National Park Service plan to spend a six-figure amount to remove baby’s breath. One reader asserted that the best way to make a wilderness is to let nature alone. The sentiment expressed was well intentioned, but it was misguided.

Baby’s breath, treasured by florists because its white flower adds a delicate beauty to floral arrangements, is one of hundreds of invasive, non-native plants running rampant across North America. Alien invaders of concern in our area include baby’s breath, autumn olive, spotted knapweed, garlic mustard and purple loosestrife. There are a host of others. Wherever these plants occur, they displace those of native origin, thus degrading habitat for the wildlife dependent on those habitats.

When baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) takes over a dune, natives such as beach pea, hoary puccoon, pitcher’s thistle and marram grass are crowded out. What remains is a monoculture unable to support the complexity of wildlife found in a healthy dune ecosystem. Monarch butterflies may disappear with the loss of suitable plants to host their larvae and eastern box turtles will vanish along with the berry-bearing vegetation upon which they depend.

Biodiversity is at its greatest when flora and fauna that evolved together are able to thrive together. Unfortunately, in too many parts of the world, it is no longer possible to “make a wilderness” by letting nature alone. Retaining healthy ecosystems will involve vigilance – to identify those plants and animals that are out of place – and action to remove them in order to maintain the ecosystems they threaten.

Ridding, or even controlling, invasive plant species requires making use of all the tools at our disposal. In some places, armies of volunteers will be needed to pull offending species and in others controlled burns may help.

Most, however, will require herbicide applications. Without repeated applications of herbicides, the meadow habitat on Charter Sanctuary would have been lost to spotted knapweed. And with that loss would have gone our nesting bobolinks, meadowlarks and sparrows.

Kay Charter is director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat and co-owner of Charter Sanctuary.

By Kay Charter
E. Omena Rd., Omena