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Boot Brush Stations Can Protect Canadian Forests - Let's Build Them Fast!
You CAN make a difference. Every step matters as human movement of soil is spreading a new invasive species in Canada. Jumping worms aka Snake worms devour the first few inches of forest substrate — and they are on their way North unless we stop them fast. It's not too cold for them to harm ecosystems in Canada — but they still need our boot treads and equipment to ride in.
Learn more about Jumping worms here: https://tinyurl.com/yzdtp37z
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
Project Protect the Rouge: Start at the Trailhead.
Project Protect the Rouge: Start at the Trailhead.
There are only a few trailheads into the fragile Rouge National Urban Park. Invasive jumping worms spread through tiny bits of soil carried in on shoes and equipment. Once introduced, they severely damage forest substrate and the habitat native ecosystems depend on. Forest understory plants and the rich levels of leaf litter and duff vanish and are replaced by degraded soil covered with the most recent year's fallen leaves and the presence of largely invasive plant species.
Boot-brush stations are a simple, proven solution. Placed at trailheads, they remove soil before it enters sensitive areas and help prevent invasive species from spreading between trails and parks.
Rouge National Urban Park’s entire trail network can be protected with just 8–10 strategically placed stations. This is a fast, low-cost action with park-wide impact — and a powerful way to begin protecting regional forests while supporting shared stewardship in Canada’s only national urban park.
Clean boots. Healthy trails. A protected Rouge.
Boot brush stations are easy and a powerful prevention measure. Let's protect Canada's fragile ecosystems with these simple measures. Let's install Boot Brush Stations at the Rouge — ASAP!
Above photo from: https://www.howardecoworks.org/post/asian-jumping-worms-a-new-wave-of-work-invaders-threatening-temperate-forests
Solution: Be like Baffin/Bruce ASAP!
In partnership with the Bruce Trail Conservancy, Baffin’s Trail Conservancy Project quickly built over 100 boot‑brush stations for the Bruce Trail to help prevent invasive species spread by hikers’ footwear. At their build, volunteers completed 40 stations on Earth Day with support from employees, community members, and partners like Turkstra Lumber. If they can — we can!
The above photos are from: https://www.baffin.com/blogs/all/baffin-bruce-trail-conservancy-boot-brush-stations-for-earth-day-2024
The Baffin/Bruce Trail design is a particularly good one, free-standing and highly portable.
Here is a link to the NAIMSA design for building boot brush stations, but variations on this design can also work fine:
https://naisma.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Building-a-Play-Clean-Go-Boot-brush-Station.pdf
Many stores sell boot brush components if you have wood: rb.gy/ksxx6w
Obviously a boot brush can even be made from durable broom heads with stiffer bristles at home, but for the trails purpose-built is ideal.
Support the change by carrying and using handheld brushes, and wear clean, forest-designated hiking boots on trails, this is always the best. Throw brushed-away soil in trash -- never compost.
Below is a map of iNaturalist sightings of Jumping Worms aka Snake Worms in the region. American researchers say they are typically finding their cocoons at trailheads and in parking lots at trails. One cocoon can hatch and produce 60+ jumping worms in a single season. Notice Ontario and the rest of Canada's vast Boreal is entirely unprotected, including Ontario's high-traffic Provincial Parks such as Algonquin Park, a beautiful and much-loved tourist destination which will not be the same if Jumping Worms remodel the forest floor as they have in the NE United States. Jumping Worms may already be at Algonquin trailheads and starting to move into the park, an environmentally devastating threat of considerable magnitude. Boot brush stations fast!
“They ruin the quality of our soil, and the only thing that can really grow in soil like that are essentially invasive plants, or species that are meant to survive really harsh conditions.” — Purdue Extension expert Robert Bruner on invasive jumping worms and soil degradation.
https://www.audubon.org/news/invasive-jumping-worms-are-now-tearing-through-midwestern-forests
https://news.wisc.edu/citizen-scientists-scour-madison-area-for-invasive-jumping-worms
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6883&subview=map&taxon_id=196397 ("redo search in map" to see the full picture of US forests and the start into Canada)
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/how-to-prevent-invasive-asian-jumping-worms-from-ruining-your-garden
Boot Brush Stations Save Forests!
Scary but informative explainer video by NE Forests. Let's take quick action to prevent this from happening here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xvkIDs3zQk
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