Teens study invasive species at camp

Seventeen-year-old Makayla Dillon lives in Kalispell. For the first time in her life, she tromped around Glacier National Park and the Flathead National Forest learning about various invasive species that threaten native flora and fauna of the Flathead Valley.

“I’m the only outdoors person in my family,” she said. “We did a bunch of cool hikes and even went to a fish hatchery.”

Dillon was one of nine junior and senior high school students from Kalispell, Missoula and Spokane, Wash. enrolled in a week-long camp to study invasive species at the Glacier Institute’s Big Creek Education Center.

The group climbed to the top of Glacier View Mountain to eat dinner and learn about invasive weeds. They went with a biologist to trap and radio-tag hybrid cutthroat trout in nearby Langford Creek, and they visited with biologists to learn about an experimental program where scuba divers spear non-native lake trout to reduce their numbers.

All told, they listened to more than 11 speakers and made several field trips over the course of the week, Big Creek director Tyler McRae said. The camp was funded by a grant from the AGL Resources Foundation and is the first camp of its kind, Glacier Institute director Joyce Baltz said.

Taylor Linke, of Spokane, researched bugs that could help control a noxious weed called tansy rangwort. Both the caterpillar of the cinnabar moth and the flea beetle eat rangwort. But the flea beetle doesn’t do well in cold climates while the moth does, and the moth only eats rangwort, not native plants, Linke said.

“The biocontrol is cool,” she said.

Linke noted that it’s difficult at times to get that message through to the average person.

“Some invasive species are really pretty and fun to look at,” she said. “It’s hard to explain to people why they’re an invasive species.”

The students also debated various control methods and learned about what’s actually being done on the ground. The bottom line was simple for Bridger Putnam, of Kalispell.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he said. “It’s way easier to prevent it than to try to put things back the way they were.”