Mark Twain National Forest's 2011 Invasive Species Accomplishments

By jan schultz on Jun 6, 2012

Mark Twain NF treats non-native invasive plants and removes feral hogs

The Mark Twain National Forest removed over 3,900 acres of invasive plants in 2011. The following is a breakdown of what was accomplished.

Non-Native and Invasive Plants

Invasive plant treatments involved:

- utilizing permitted livestock on 2,475 acres to contain and/or reduce Sericea lespedeza and multiflora rose

- mowing and brushing Sericea lespedeza, autumn olive, non-native thistles and spotted kapweed on 993 acres

- 320 acres of herbicide treatment on Sericea lespedeza.

Approximately five acres of Kudzu were prescribed burned as a pretreatment for herbicide. Additional invasive treatments (mowing) were completed by grazing permittees as part of conservation practices on grazing allotments.

Feral Hogs

In 2011, The Mark Twain in partnership with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) removed 104 feral hogs from nine trap sites on national forest or adjacent private lands.

Fourteen feral hogs were captured in April 2011. Ten more were captured in June of that same year. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) helped the forest catch a large male feral hog (boar) on private land, two miles south of Bell Mountain. This particular boar had been fitted with a GPS-radio collar in December 2010. It traveled three miles northeast of the trap site and was eventually killed two miles west of the capture site on Forest Service property.

In January 2011, five feral hogs were captured along the Big Piney River on private property just east of the Eck track and bordering NFS lands. In 2010, 34 hogs were removed from this area.