Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

Non Native Species
In
The Verde River

During my years of growing up down by the river side, non native plants and animals have never crossed my mind as a harmful thing. I played by the river running through trees and catching crawdads out of the slime covered moss that I never thought would be endangering the surroundings that I grew to love so dearly. As I started doing some research there are a number of things that are endangering the surroundings, from crawfish, bullfrogs and even some plant life. I started some research and the knowledge I gained during this time was incredible.
My journey to help make the river a pure and natural place was a very cold one. It was about six at night during late fall and my brother and I decided to go set some crawdad traps down at the Verde River in Camp Verde where I live. As we rode the quad all the way down through mud and water we found this perfect place to drop the trap. The thing is, the rope was so old and breakable we had to restring it, leaving us with a short amount of rope. My hands were already freezing from the ride over. I took the string and cage and tossed it in the river. Not fully realizing the little amount of string I had to hold onto, plop went the cage and the string right out of my hand and was now at the bottom of the river. I knew what was coming next, down go my pants and off went my shoes. I decided to go swimming in the extremely cold waters. Searching around with my toes through the rocks and mud I felt the string hit my toes. I grabbed the cage and stuck it in the water anchoring the rope close to shore. Finally, I was back home and feeling a little better about taking one to help the environment. The numbness in my toes was slowly receding.
My research for crawdads or also known as crawfish, was very interesting. Crawfish are non native in over 19 different countries. They have been illegal to sell as bait in fish and tackle stores but are sadly still being distributed all across the United States. What people donâ€™t realize, is that crawfish are introducing diseases, hurting native fish and harming the aquatic ecosystem. Many different departments such as Arizona Ecological Services and Arizona Game and FIsh Department, are coordinating together to stop the spread of non native Species. Interested and puzzled I decided to look more into this. Three different procedures have been considered in getting rid of
non native crawfish in the environment, the use of piscicide( poisonous chemical substance to fish), the use of mechanical techniques, such as electrofishing, blasting and nets were brought up and lastly taking no action at all. Some of the pros and cons that came up when these techniques were considered were as follows : the use of piscicides would effectively kill off all bullfrogs and tadpoles that came into contact with the chemical. Some other problems were brought into question when it came to dumping chemicals into the rivers. People questioned that it would be potentially harmful to humans. Retenone, an organic compound that was extracted through the roots of certain species of the bean families was also used as a chemical piscicide. Retenone was established through multiple studies to obtain approval of the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA. Retenone does not cause birth defects or harm the public health. This natural extract will slowly reduce the number of non native species to our environment. Mechanical use, has been less effective then any other method of removing crawfish. Nearly $4.4 million dollars has been spent in mechanical uses and over $1.6 million non native species were removed from the rivers across the U.S. The big question is, is it worth killing some native species and still not being able to fully remove all crawfish? This is the question you need to ask yourself when considering using chemicals and mechanical means of removal.
To me the Verde River is not just a river, its a place that I grew to love and I am willing to be a part of the solution in aiding efforts of eliminating non native species and plants from the river that are harming the environment. So far I have captured a number of crawdads and disposed of them. Being involved in the small community of Camp Verde has given me some means of reaching out and educating the community about the potential long term problems of ignoring many of the non native species of fish as well as plants invading the Verde River.