- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

The Dog-strangling vine has not been implicated in any actual dog-stranglings, as far as I can tell. But it has brought about the starvation deaths of many Monarch butterfly larvae when eggs are laid on the plant that appears (to a Monarch) to be milkweed but is not food for their young.
And it is an invasive species that is spreading rapidly.
All this I learned from Bill Moses, who took me out beyond the Tom Thomson Trail in back of the Kiwanis Soccer complex. We walked through puddles made by the tires of ATVs, themselves spreading buckthorn and dog-strangling vine (DSV) with them. Bill had a big green garbage bag of DSV that he had pulled out over a number of visits. Once you see it, you see it everywhere, and it is easy to pull out.
The leaves of the plant were starting to turn yellow, but some of the seed pods were still quite green. Others had ripened into smooth skinny versions of milk-weed pods, breaking open to reveal the same brown seeds with silky parachutes that let the plant spread so easily in the breeze.
According to the County of Grey website, “Owners and occupiers of land, municipal, rural and urban, are reminded that it is their responsibility to control all declared noxious weeds under the Noxious Weeds Act.” That would include the City of Owen Sound who own this property.
The County of Grey has the responsibility to appoint a weed inspector.
But the best chance of getting rid of this is just what Bill is doing – only on a bigger scale. Volunteers going out in groups and doing the sort of systematic grid search we'd do if we were looking for a treasure. Or a strangled dog!
And one more thing. Those ATVs? I think we found why they were out there off the trail. It was weed alright, but not on the list.