State urges duck hunters to stop moving roseau cane

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With the duck hunting season a few weeks away, Louisiana wildlife managers are urging hunters not to move roseau cane, in an effort to avoid spreading a foreign pest that's decimating Louisiana's coastal wetlands.

The state declared an emergency quarantine for an Asian scale insect and the roseau cane the insect targets, a hardy marsh plant that's of vital importance in the lower Mississippi River Delta.

Duck hunters frequently use the cane to conceal their hideouts, known as blinds. Hunters sometimes harvest cane stalks from marshes, take them home and then transport them to a blind at a third location. This may give the scale the opportunity to spread to several areas. Fragments of cane may also be moved by hunters' boats.

"The rate at which (the scale) seems to be expanding and the severity of its impacts is alarming," the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said in a statement.

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