Thanks for the article reference, Ed.
Interesting and radical approach. I'm am not sure if I am supportive - as the other posters have said: more toxins for the environment and its tough to beat Ma Nature. That being said, this is something that my hunt club might try to learn more about.
We own and manage a 200 acre 'Great Lakes Shoreline' marsh on Lake Ontario (north shore, eh!). Stop me if you've heard this one before about any number of habitats: there used to be many, many marshes ringing the lower Great Lakes but a combination of landfilling and changes to the water management of the Lakes have reduced them significantly. The true 'watershed' (har, har) event was the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway back in the 50's. Prior to that, there was an extended cycle of drought and flood. Over a decade-long cycle, drought conditions would dry out the marshes and terrestrial plans would take over; then, flood years would happen and the terrestrials would be killed off and emergent and submergent growth would happen. The competition between terrestrial, emergent, and submergent plants helped to maintain biodiversity - all good.
Now, the Seaway dams enable waterlevels to be maintained to optimize shipping. Good for commerce, bad for the marshes (and the flora and fauna that inhabit them). Without the extended cycle, there is no flood/drought and so the dominant competitors of the plant types win - in our case lilypads (submergent), cattails (emergent), and dogwood (terrestrial). Our marsh is slowly filling in - from the borders with dogwood thickets and in the middle with cattail. Each year, our channels and ponds get smaller, the marsh is used less by migrators, and we spend more time hunting divers...
We have sunk (word chosen deliberately) tens of thousands of dollars in building and rebuilding 'water control structures' (aka, a dam) at the outlet of our marsh in attempts to be able to replicate the drought-flood cycle by drawing down the water level in the marsh. We have also channeled and dug ponds in the cattails. But, as our friend says, it is pretty hard to go against Mother Nature...
Actually, one success that we have had is to add a steel-frame fishway to the dam outlet that enables spawning pike to enter and leave but precludes carp. Previously, you could walk across the marsh on the backs of the carp. They feed by rooting and were killing all of the underwater plants and turning the water to a turbid soup. It's really helped to keep them out.
We have asked local biologists about burning over the cattails in winter but have been assured that this would not kill the tuberous root mats. So, I am intrigued that the ND government is endorsing herbicide as a way to kill off cattails.
I am not a big supporter of highly-interventionary tactic, particularly those that send toxins into the environment (hey - remember when people worried about "pollution", not just greenhouse gases?). But thanks again for the article - it is interesting to learn that a radical approach is being tried elsewhere.
All the best,
Dano
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