After a one year hiatus due to Covid-19, Denali National Park will be hosting its popular “Dandelion Demolition” this Saturday at the park.
“Dandelion Demolition” began in 2016 as part of the 100 Year Celebration of the National Park System. Twenty-five people showed up that year to learn about invasive species and to pull invasive dandelions. National Park Ranger, Kathleen Kelly describes the goal of the program.
“So what we’re trying to do, especially here in the park, because, you know, the national parks are all about conservation and preservation, we really want to preserve the native species. We help them along by coming in and removing a good chunk of the non-native dandelions here in the front country, what we call the front country, which is the developed part of the park.”
The annual program has been popular. In 2019, eighty-seven people arrived to help tackle the dandelions. That year, over 287 pounds of invasive dandelions were removed in just a few hours.
There are two species of dandelions that grow in Denali. One is a native species and the other is non-native. Ranger Kelly explained that, while natural predators exist to eat native dandelions, the invasive variety carries the risk that it may overpopulate and choke out native plants. Other national parks have seen a dramatic reduction in plant diversity, replaced with a monoculture, because of invasive plant varieties.
During “Dandelion Demolition”, volunteers spend the morning learning about the plants. They receive tools and instruction and spend a few hours removing the weeds. Then they are free to spend the afternoon enjoying the park.
Ranger Kelly explained that the park does not just take the plants to the landfill, where they might escape and populate elsewhere. The dandelions have a variety of fates.
“The volunteers that come, a lot of times will ask, “Can we take this to make dandelion wine?” or “Can we take the leaves for salads?”, and so we let folks take them if they’re going to consume them, just with the understanding, “Now you have the understanding, make sure that this doesn’t spread.” But what we do is we bag them up and the next time that the trail crew or the national resources folks have a burn pile, we actually burn them.”
“Dandelion Demolition” takes place in June, whenever the dandelions begin to flower and that depends on weather. In 2019, when spring arrived early, the event was held on June 7. This year, after a colder spring, the dandelions won’t be pulled until this weekend.
Denali National Park also has a volunteer event in the fall, intended to partner with “Dandelion Demolition”. That program is held in August and is called “Need for Seed”. Ranger Kelly explains what happens then.
“Here in June, we’re talking about the exotics and trying to remove them, and then in August when those native flowers and plants have gone to seed, we collect the seeds. And volunteers come out, they learn about these native plants and then we dry them and freeze them and we put them in bags. And we write on the bags exactly where they came from and what date. And then when we need to have a restoration project, say there’s like a road construction or something, and we need to restore an area, we have seeds from that area. You know, no more than twenty miles away, and we can replant with native seeds from the area.”
This year’s “Dandelion Demolition” will take place June 19th, 9am to 1pm. Interested participants can register for the event by calling the Denali National Park Volunteer Office at (907) 683-9504.
