{"id":102029,"date":"2023-08-20T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/its-no-fun-getting-slugged-in-southeast-alaska\/"},"modified":"2023-08-20T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T05:30:00","slug":"its-no-fun-getting-slugged-in-southeast-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/its-no-fun-getting-slugged-in-southeast-alaska\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s no fun getting slugged in Southeast Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
Offered a chance for some deep, rich black earth for gardening in a tiny Southeast Alaska village, I asked if there were any black slugs in it.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“If you’re going to garden here you have to just get used to them,” a resident curtly told me.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
And with that began my battle and fascination with the invasive giant black slug known as Arion ater.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Tenakee Springs in Southeast Alaska, with a population of 120 souls in the summer and possibly a third of that in the winter, lies 62 nautical miles (there are no roads to it) south of Juneau. Sitting on Chichagof Island deep in the Tongass National Forest, Tenakee is surrounded by secondary and old-growth forest.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Southeast Alaska is blessed with bountiful summer sunshine of close to 18 hours, lots of water, dirt from the forests, and rich alluvial soil from its many streams and rivers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I once lived in Skagway, the self-proclaimed “Garden City of Alaska,” 90 miles north of Juneau, but never encountered black slugs before moving to Tenakee Springs.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
How did they make their way to Tenakee — and how do gardeners here either kill or deter them?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Tenakee resident Joni Gates fights slugs in her garden using broken-up clam shells that the slugs are unable to motor through. (Photo by Dimitra Lavrakas)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Slugs on the move<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Like so many invasive species changing environments worldwide, their journeys begins far away and are transported either by ship or plane secreted in soil, food, or lumber shipments. Native to Europe, the black slug has invaded Australia, Canada (British Columbia, Newfoundland, Quebec), and the Pacific Northwest including Alaska.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The Alaska National Heritage Project, part of the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Alaska Center for Conservation Science, keeps track of invasive species, as well as the state’s animal and plant species ecosystems, and their ranking as a conservation concern.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t ANHP published an invasive ranking for the black slug based on distribution, biological characteristics, ecological impacts, and feasibility of control. These categories were assigned points, and Arion alter received a 62\/100, or “moderately invasive.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t But you wouldn’t know that when viewing the march of slugs up and down “The Trail,” the only road through town and where cars and trucks are not allowed. It’s four-wheelers, bicycles, or feet.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t In an attempt to rise above slug attacks, the author grows her garden in containers on the deck overlooking Tenakee Inlet. (Photo by Dimitra Lavrakas)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t The wonder of them<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t I have to admire black slugs for their drive to survive. They’re also — aside from the curious, but also creepy breathing hole on their side — a creature uniquely suited for survival.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t According to Wikipedia, “Like other terrestrial slugs, the black slug is a hermaphrodite, preferring to find a mate, often several, but can self-fertilize. After mating, the black slug seeks a dark, moist environment such as beneath mosses and occasionally within topsoil, to lay its eggs of about 0.2 inch in diameter. Between August and October, an individual slug lays up to 150 eggs every one to three weeks with clutches diminishing to 20 eggs late in the season. Juveniles hatch after at least twenty-seven days, hatching later under cold temperatures. Maturation takes up to nine months, enabling mating in early summer. Black slugs die shortly after laying its last clutch, rarely surviving into a second year.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t With that breeding power, they are able to overrun an area and demolish the native slug species in Southeast, the Pacific banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus, the second-largest terrestrial slug on Earth at almost 9.8 inches long.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Plus, black slugs are highly aggressive. A friend and I went for a walk up the forest trail and found slugs everywhere, but one in particular was beginning a face-off with a banana slug.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Arion alter is present in Alaska in Anchorage, Cordova, Yakutat, Gustavus, Juneau, Sitka, Tenakee Springs, Ketchikan and Kodiak Island, according to the Alaska National Heritage Project.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Black slugs do provide some positive effects on seed and spore dispersal in the forest through their fecal matter, but for gardeners their presence is a never-ending chore and source of frustration.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Boasting 27,000 teeth, the black slug is a natural wonder of machine-like destruction. Their flexible band of microscopic teeth, called radula, acts like a circular saw and they can grind through plants without slowing down.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t