Exotic animals deployed as Delta ‘weed whackers’
by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences
Visitors to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are doing double takes lately as they encounter some newly introduced “biological controls” to keep a fast-spreading waterweed from damaging boat propellers and choking off waterways.
Working with state water officials, UC Davis scientists last month released a herd or “bloat” of hippopotamuses from Botswana to chow down on vast mats of water hyacinth that also threaten to clog the intake to the California Aqueduct near Stockton.
The menagerie of radio-tagged herbivores is part of a yearlong experiment in more natural and, some say, more effective, controls for curbing the menacing growth of non-native aquatic weeds in the Delta.
Enlisting hippos in the biowarfare is the brainchild of Robert Broussard, a professor with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences who has long touted biological controls as a cost-effective way to keep the growth of hyacinth in check.
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