Volunteers, organized by the St. Louis Audubon Society and St. Louis County Parks, hacked away for hours on Saturday to remove invasive Asian bush honeysuckle from about an acre of Creve Coeur Park in Maryland Heights.
About 30 volunteers pitched in, said Mitch Leachman, of Maryland Heights and executive director with the Audubon Society.
He said the plant has no natural controls and is spreading rapidly throughout the park, degrading the landscape for birds and native plants.
This project continues a 14-month program to enhance the natural areas of the park for the benefit of birds and other wildlife, he said.
The overall restoration program is being funded, in part, by a grant from the National Audubon Society's TogetherGreen program which provides leadership and opportunities for people to take action in their communities to improve the environment.
"In just eight months last year, over 300 volunteers planted 900 trees, removed nearly 8,000 pounds of trash from the Creve Coeur Creek watershed and restored six acres of wetland," he said.
The 2,100 acre park, with more than 600 acres reserved for natural areas, is one of only three areas in St. Louis County designated as internationally-recognized Important Bird Area (IBA).
IBAs are sites that provide breeding, wintering or migration habitat to one or more bird species of conservation concern, Leachman said.
The Missouri Department of Conservation and St. Louis County Parks have made the elimination of bush honeysuckle a priority, Leachman said.
"A diverse array of native plants are lost everywhere honeysuckle takes hold — leading to a cascade effect on the ecosystem," Leachman said. "Native insects will not feed on the 'foreign' plants, and the insect populations fall, leading to a decline in songbirds who depend on them for food."
It's also important for homeowners to examine their yards for Asian bush honeysuckle and remove it, which benefits the entire area, he said.
"The plants will be continually reseeded as long as they're in people's back yards, no matter how much we remove them from public areas," he said.
Leachman's society plans another workday for March 5, and for more information on that, visit www.stlouisaudubon.org.
