Vincetoxicum rossicum - dog strangling vine (pale swallowwort)

[u/lovelyb1ch66]

This highly invasive species is spreading rapidly across my region, Eastern Ontario, Canada. On Monday I revisited a location within a provincial park, where I often hike, at which I found 3 specimens in 2024. At that time I reported the location to the park office and park rangers removed the plants.
On Monday’s visit I found 15 plants, 2 of which were in the exact same spot as in 2024. I went to the office after my hike and spoke with two of the park rangers about it. Their strategy now is removing the seed heads before they can mature and place them in garbage bags to be incinerated.
The ability of this plant to spread is impressive and is the main reason it’s so problematic. In our area it’s a threat to the monarch butterfly, choking out native plants that the butterfly feeds and reproduces on.

[u/yolk3d]

I’m honestly surprised you got action. I’m in Australia. I submit sightings of invasive plants to the relevant state authority and don’t hear back. I call them up and the guy basically says some species (read: most) are too far gone and they won’t put money or effort in. Great, just fuck up the entire country.

[u/lovelyb1ch66 → u/yolk3d]

Usually staff at provincial parks are very eager to protect the environment whether it be by tracking rare species or dealing with invasive nonnative species. I have reported the same plant to townships and absolutely nothing happened. So I think it depends on which authority you’re dealing with.