{"id":792186,"date":"2026-07-29T22:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792186\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:48:14","slug":"concerning-invasive-species-threatens-lilies-along-catawba-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792186\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Concerning\u2019: Invasive species threatens lilies along Catawba River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">CATAWBA, S.C. (WBTV) &#8211; An invasive species is threatening lilies along part of the Catawba River in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CatawbaRiverkeeper\/posts\/1470644758429231?ref=embed_post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CatawbaRiverkeeper\/posts\/1470644758429231?ref=embed_post\">Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation said Tuesday, July 28<\/a>, that alligatorweed has taken root in the Landsford Canal State Park stand of rocky shoals spider lilies in the river.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/des.sc.gov\/programs\/bureau-water\/aquatic-science\/aquatic-nuisance-plants\/illegal-aquatic-plants\/alligatorweed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/des.sc.gov\/programs\/bureau-water\/aquatic-science\/aquatic-nuisance-plants\/illegal-aquatic-plants\/alligatorweed\">Alligatorweed<\/a>, an invasive species, was likely introduced to that stretch of the river during Hurricane Helene in 2024 and has since spread through the lily population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials said the spread is concerning because alligatorweed is considered one of the world\u2019s worst aquatic weeds, capable of rapid growth that chokes out native plants. The foundation said it can also reduce wildlife habitat and create challenges for recreation, water management and local communities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8211;&gt; Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbtv.com\/2026\/07\/29\/invasive-hornets-discovered-first-time-north-carolina-charlotte-area-home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wbtv.com\/2026\/07\/29\/invasive-hornets-discovered-first-time-north-carolina-charlotte-area-home\/\">Invasive species discovered for 1st time in North Carolina at Charlotte-area home<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">During a recent spider lily propagation day, volunteers and staff spent time manually removing the invasive plant, and the Catawba Riverkeeper is seeking grant funding to expand efforts to remove the weed from the \u201cbeloved\u201d section of the river.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WBTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CATAWBA, S.C. (WBTV) &#8211; An invasive species is threatening lilies along part of the Catawba River in South&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[336665,336664,336666,192,47095,4167,336667,122445,3729,3,82133,21980,14133,79,5614,120663,95416],"class_list":["post-792186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alligatorweed","tag-catawba-river","tag-catawba-riverkeeper-foundation","tag-environment","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-invasive-species","tag-lillies","tag-lily","tag-local","tag-news","tag-officials","tag-river","tag-sc","tag-science","tag-south-carolina","tag-wbtv","tag-weed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}