War with the Russian Olive
Bill Wolverton’s
War with the Russian Olive

“Eradicating Russian Olive from the Escalante River canyons is going to be a huge job and is going to take several years. It will not be easy, and constant follow up will be required to maintain control of it. However, it can be done, and the consequence of not doing it is to allow the Escalante and its side canyons to become a nearly continuous monoculture of Russian Olive from one end to the other, with nearly all the native vegetation replaced by the invader.”
— Bill Wolverton

—  Articles by Bill Wolverton  —
—  Articles  —
Man Who Saves Nat’l Park Vistas • Ethan Gilsdorf
Invasive Weeds Threaten Native Species • Joe Baird
Invasive Plants on the Rampage • J. Baird & M. Havnes
—  Outside Articles  —
Wolverton’s War on Weeds • Julie Cozby
Russian Olive • USFS database
“It was my friend Bob Read who really inspired me to start this. He is the one who talked us into letting him work on the Russian Olive in Choprock, which is his favorite place around here, and he and I did it together in the fall of 2000 and spring of 2001. He had spent enough time there over several years to really notice just how fast the Russian Olive was moving in. I had just come back to work here after 5 years in exile at Zion and The Maze, and we had only been working on Tamarisk, plus what little Russian Olive there was, in Coyote. We had no thoughts about doing anything on the river, certainly not about attacking Russian Olive on a large scale.”
— Bill Wolverton
If you are interested in getting involved with this project,
contact the Wilderness Volunteers

compilation by bill wolverton & stefanos folias