Alaska experts are grappling with the challenge of controlling the highly invasive Japanese knotweed, which is resistant to conventional eradication methods and threatens local ecosystems.

Invasive Elodea has been observed since 2020.

While the Kenai Peninsula is relatively lucky that the ecosystems here are fairly intact, there are still a handful of invasive species making their way into the streams, fields and gardens here.

There’s a new, probably non-native, invasive species in town, just discovered in late June. It’s a disease-causing fungus (Gemmamyces piceae) that afflicts spruce buds, often killing them altogether but sometimes just causing deformed buds and twigs.