Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM) is hosted by the NY-NJ Trail Conference and is dedicated to protecting the Lower Hudson region's biodiversity & ecosystems with a focus on controlling the harmful impacts of invasive species. 

Sticky sage, an emerging invasive species in the Lower Hudson Valley, is an herbaceous perennial plant in the mint family native to Europe. Like many invasives in our region, sticky sage is sold as an ornamental garden plant and has recently been observed exhibiting invasive characteristics in multiple New York locations.

Because of the robust nature of sticky sage, the ease of spread, and avoidance of deer herbivory and other predation, sticky sage has the capacity to form monocultures on forest floors. These monocultures push out native plants, causing a cascading reduction of biodiversity and ecosystem health. Since everything humans need and love comes from nature, this has huge implications for human health as well.

The Invasives Strike Force Crew has been working hard at managing this species and has so far seen promising results! Over the past 2 years of managing sticky sage in Dover, NY, the crew has seen a 66% decrease in an infestation that spanned about half the area of Central Park in New York City!

Invasives Strike Force surveyors Cathy Elko (left) and Stefanie Brown having fun searching for invasive species in Sterling Forest State Park. Photo credit: Krysti Sabins

We are one month away from wrapping up the ISF Survey season and completed data reports are starting to stream in! Thus far, 36 unique surveyors have completed 66 survey assignments dedicating over 350 hours to finding and reporting locations of hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), beech leaf disease (BLD), black swallowwort, spotted lanternfly and tree of heaven. This year, we are not just focusing on reporting invasive species, but we are also looking for native hemlocks and beech trees that seem to be resisting some of the more damaging effects of HWA and BLD by reporting on the degree of symptom progression in hemlock and beech stands, respectively. We really appreciate the the extra time and care this year's surveyors are putting in to record these more detailed monitoring data that will directly contribute to management plans next year. We anticipate summarizing our results in upcoming newsletters once the field season winds down and we can begin analyzing trends.

We want to give a big shout out to all surveyors who have completed and submitted at least 2 surveys this year and/or have dedicated over 10 hours of service to surveying thus far this season. Huge thanks to Irene Sheldon who has completed a whopping 38 surveys thus far- a new ISF survey record and she is still going! Cathy Elko and Stefanie Brown, Thea Landesberg and Angela Clarke, Claudia Esker, Theresa Ryan and Jill Eisenstein have all completed at least 2 surveys this year in parks ranging from Sterling Forest SP in Orange County, to Wonder Lake SP to Tourne County Park in NJ, to name a few. In addition, Greg Smith and Smadar Shemesh, Ann and Gerry Barry, Abby Rudin, Linda DeWolfe and Michael Reingold, and Michael Lovell and Andy Frank have all topped the 10 hrs.-dedicated milestone this year. We are so grateful for all of our ISF surveyors' contributions!!!

We also wanted to send out a big thank you to volunteer leaders Terry Cohn and Joe Motisi (seen above left in photo with volunteer Jim Bostler) who have been doing a phenomenal job overseeing our native garden work at Trail Conference Headquarters this year. The Habitat Helpers Program has held 10 workdays so far in 2023. Most recently, the volunteer group focused on trimming back sumacs that were leaning into the parking lot and removing pesky invaders like bush honeysuckle (pictured above), stiltgrass, garlic mustard, and invasive bittersweet and mile-a-minute vines. It has been fun watching all the pollinator activity buzzing around the garden's native mountain mint this past month!