What's the Bureau of Land Management going to do about invasive species on public lands?

If we don't remove this now, what is it going to look like 10 years from now?

It's Thursday, October 3rd, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm Cyfry producer, D. Petersmith.

The Bureau of Land Management has a big job, maintain 245 million acres of public land, and protect the wildlife that lives there.

But invasive plants are holding back some of these efforts.

And BLM recently approved the use of seven new herbicides to kill these invasive species on public land.

That's been controversial among some groups that say these herbicides could do the opposite of what they hope,

damaging native wildlife.

Guestos Anna Rothschild has that story, and after that, we'll talk about the surprising physics

hidden in one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings.

Joining us to talk about this story is my guest, David Condos, Southern Utah reporter for

public radio station K-U-E-R, based in St. George, Utah. David, welcome back to Science Friday.

Oh, thank you, Anna. Glad to be here. Okay, David, so give us a bit of context here.

How many acres of land might be sprayed with these herbicides and in which states?

Yes. So when you're talking about the Western U.S., there is just a ton of federal land all over the place.

So the Bureau of Land Management, like you said, has those 245 million acres. And,

you know, some of the states that have the most are, you know, like Alaska, Nevada, Utah. But

there's also a lot of BLM land in places like California and Colorado, too. And when it comes to

invasives, you know, the BLM says it deals with these harmful non-native plants on about

79 million of those acres.

And just to kind of give you some sense of scale for this, the 79 million acres would be

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