Week of March 16, 2009
Updated 3/20 -------------------------------------------------------- Vitex eradication effort gains traction Group tallies past year's accomplishments By Gareth McGrath, StarNewsOnline.com Fort Fisher, North Carolina - The invasive plant has been discovered in Virginia and in places in North Carolina thought to be vitex-free. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it shows that the educational and outreach efforts of the Carolinas Beach Vitex Task Force about the menace posed by the foreign invader are working. It also shows, however, that there's a lot of work to do to eradicate the shrub. It is native to the Pacific Rim and was once viewed as the savior of the coast, but it's turned out to be a huge biological menace. On Friday members of the task force gathered at the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher to celebrate the past year's successes and discuss the remaining challenges facing the multi-state effort to eradicate beach vitex. Among the 2008 accomplishment...