Each year numerous staff and volunteer hours are spent managing invasive plants at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine.  In May of this year, refuge staff and volunteers contributed more than 80 hours to pulling garlic mustard at a rare plant site in the Brave Boat Harbor Division in Kittery.  Garlic mustard was introduced to the United States from Europe for use as medicine and food.  It is a cool-season, shade-tolerant, biennial herb that is currently one of the most serious invaders in forested areas of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, however it is rare in Maine.  Long-term presence of garlic mustard in the ground layer vegetation of forests is associated with a significant decline in cover of native herbaceous species.  This is the fifth year the refuge and volunteers have controlled garlic mustard, pulling it on the site, and working along roadsides and we are making a difference.  Each year there is less garlic mustard to pull on the refuge, however we need to continue working with our neighbors to ensure this plant does not get a foothold in Maine.

Other invasive plants such as, buckthorn, mulitiflora rose, and barberry were managed by refuge staff and volunteers from the Defenders of Wildlife Volunteer Corps.  Rachel Carson NWR is working towards the establishment of a new native shrubland for the ESA Candidate species, New England cottontail and are working to prevent the domination of the area by invasives.  We do not know if invasive plants are harmful to the rabbit, however when creating new habitat, we are giving the native plants the advantage.