Thankfully, the Badger-Two Medicine, like the rest of our mission area, is still predominantly characterized by healthy, intact native plant communities. However, noxious weed encroachment poses a major threat to the ecological integrity, natural beauty, and cultural uses of this region. Noxious weeds like spotted knapweed, orange hawkweed, leafy spurge, and oxeye daisy, degrade fish and wildlife habitat, harm water quality, and can out compete native plants that are traditional sources of food and medicine, or otherwise culturally significant to Blackfeet people or other communities.  

Unfortunately, the scale of the challenge is greater than land management agencies like the Forest Service can tackle alone. That’s why Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is stepping up to help, because protecting the ecological, cultural, and economic health of this region requires all of us to pull together.

How We’re Fighting Noxious Weeds

GTMA is engaging the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, Glacier National Park, the Blackfeet Nation, county governments, private landowners, and other community and conservation partners to improve information sharing, mapping, surveillance, and coordinated weed management efforts in the Badger-Two Medicine and on adjacent lands, as well as to raise public awareness about the ecological, cultural, and economic impacts of weeds.

Our specific projects this year include:

GTMA volunteers and other participants at the annual Marias Pass Spray Day in 2021. Photo: Donna Caruso Hirst

Marias Pass Spray Day
Hosted by Glacier National Park, the Marias Pass Spray Day brings federal, county, and tribal government agencies, the BNSF Railway, private landowners and community groups like GTMA together to spray weeds in the Highway 2/BNSF corridor. GTMA volunteers spray the Marias Pass Rest Area, Campground and other adjacent locations. 

Two Medicine Community Weed Pull and Education Event, Aug. 6th.
New in 2022! This fabulous event brings people together to help keep the Badger-Two Medicine beautiful and learn about the impacts and management of noxious weeds. After pulling weeds in the morning, volunteers will be treated to a hot, grilled lunch followed by engaging educational talks, awards, and door prizes. Volunteers wanted!  Learn more. 

Weed Management Work by the Piikani Lands Service Crew
GTMA is contracting the Piikani Lands Service Crew, an all-Blackfeet crew with the Montana Conservation Corps, to hand pull spotted knapweed in environmentally sensitive and harder to reach sections of the South Fork Two Medicine drainage in the Badger-Two Medicine this August. The Crew will target the leading edge of a knapweed infestation that has taken hold in the river’s floodplain in order to help limit the spread of knapweed further into the Badger-Two Medicine.

Root boring weevils, Photo: Will Dewey.

BioControls
Through a partnership with the Rocky Mountain Front Weed Roundtable, GTMA will release approximately 6,000 more knapweed root boring weevils, Cyphocleonus achates, in the South Fork Two Medicine drainage this August. Described by one weed expert as the gift that keeps on giving, root boring weevils have proven effective at reducing the density, dominance, and longevity of knapweed. This allows native plants to increase their abundance, get re-established, or better compete against invasive knapweed.

Monitoring
GTMA is piloting a new smartphone-based weed reporting survey and will soon be recruiting citizen volunteers to help report noxious weeds. The survey was developed by the Montana Natural Heritage Program to improve ease and consistency of monitoring noxious weeds across the state. Separately, we’re working with the Rocky Mountain Front Weed Roundtable to establish multiple biocontrol monitoring sites to measure the effectiveness of our weevils over time.

Five Great Ways You Can Help Fight Weeds

  1. Volunteer at the Marias Pass Spray Day, June 27, 2022. More Information.

  2. Volunteer at the Two Medicine Community Weed Pull and Education Event, Saturday Aug. 6th, 2022. Hot cooked lunch, awards, and prizes! More Information.

  3. Report observations of noxious weeds in the Crown of the Continent using your smartphone! (More information coming soon).

  4. Donate to Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance to support this and other stewardship work.

  5. Pull 10 a Trip - Aim to pull 10 invasive plants every trip you encounter weeds (be sure of your identification!)