Non-native invasive species - biological invaders - have garnered extensive social, philosophical, management and scientific interest due to their ability to impact and alter natural and even human communities. How should we as a society cope with biological invasions? Current management solutions to biological invasion problems run the gamut from the use of chemicals to attempt to eradicate invasive species to the decision to do nothing at all. When nothing is done, native ecosystems are often altered and degraded.

Legal and economic reactions to biological invasions include the creation of laws that are difficult to enforce and the appropriation of large sums of money to attempt to control or eradicate the invader. Unfortunately, control and eradication of organisms that have already established large populations are often extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Lake Davis pike scenario illustrates that even when the technical solution to an invasive species is relatively straightforward, coping with an invader also requires the buy-in of local communities, and often, involving stakeholders directly in the decision-making process.

People have the power to affect or facilitate biological invasions. They can do this in countless ways: people can move non-native species like fish into new environments, where the new species have no natural enemies and so can spread out-of-control. People can also modify the environment by building dams and imposing other large scale alterations which impact the ability of native species to survive and may favor non-native invaders.

People can also help to stop invasions. They have the power to change attitudes within their community so that introducing new species is not acceptable. They can even eradicate invasive species, even at the grasroots level, as is happening in the 20 year long project to hand-pull spotted knapweed by the Salmon River Restoration Council. The punchline is that people are learning to cope with the ramifications of their actions, either weathering economic losses and the loss of native species they have come to value, or pulling together to combat this growing threat.