Huron Pines surveys Island Park waters

ALPENA, Mich. — Rain didn’t stop Huron Pines Americorps from doing their environmental survey Saturday morning.

The Americorps members of Huron Pines took to the waters around island park early on Saturday. They paddled their kayaks through the water to locate and digitally mark patches of an invasive plant called the European frogbit.

Project organizer Nicholas Theisen said managing the species early is incredibly important.

“It forms big, dense mats on the back waters among the cattails. And it can just crowd out native vegetation… It’s relatively new. It was only found here in the Wildlife Sanctuary in 2012, I believe. So we’re trying to document it while it’s here early.”

The Alpena Wildlife Sanctuary will use the location data to remove the frogbit growths later this summer.

This survey was part of a larger study of invasive species in the Thunder Bay watershed.