On August 16, 2007, Service biologist Steve Arey from the Arlington, Texas Field Office met with a private landowner and representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to develop a cooperative strategy to control an invasive plant, musk thistle, which is threatening prairie remnants containing several rare and at-risk plants on the LBJ National Grasslands and on adjacent private lands. Currently the musk thistle is confined to approximately 300-acres on several tracts of private land adjacent to the National Grasslands. The Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife program will be taking a leadership role in working with the private landowners that are affected by this invasive thistle.

The musk thistle is an herbaceous biennial plant that grows to 6 feet tall. It has become a serious invader in open lands throughout the United States. Once established it can spread rapidly due to high seed production (as much as 120,000 seed per plant). Musk thistle is native to Western Europe and was accidentally introduced into the United States in the early 1900s.