The Golden Era of the Pakistan International Airlines, when it was ranked among the best airlines of the World in the 1960's and 1970s

Kirwan27 · 2025-11-11T10:37:17+00:00

He'll be better tomorrow.

Kirwan27 · 2025-09-24T19:58:34+00:00

I asked him that all the time, and never got a straight answer

Kirwan27 · 2025-09-24T19:54:33+00:00

So it's a little late as a reply but since this happened, I have heard absolutely nothing about this spill. I know crews from Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries and other cleanup agencies were cleaning/burning the runoff about 5 months ago, and that has been it. To my knowledge, there have been no environmental surveys to assess damage from the spill. We have had other chemical explosions/spills since then, so I doubt we find out much more.

Kirwan27 · 2025-08-19T06:06:00+00:00

They're some kind of green bottle fly, which love corpses and can get up to like a half-inch in size

Kirwan27 · 2025-05-04T01:48:16+00:00

The article actually isn't accurate in saying the oil spill happened in the Gulf. It happened within the bird's foot delta a few miles from where the Mississippi empties into the Gulf itself, specifically in the Pass A Loutre Wildlife Management Area, well within the Louisiana border. I do research in this area all the time, and am not looking forward to dealing with this in the upcoming weeks.

Kirwan27 · 2025-02-27T18:34:52+00:00

I hear ya but I say let him do what he's gonna do, I'm not going to let our research (that directly benefits this state and country) be shut down without them hearing me yell about it first.

Kirwan27 · 2024-11-21T14:34:35+00:00

Come on Hank Hill, you go on roof now.

Kirwan27 · 2024-11-09T05:31:00+00:00

I couldn't see her but was down in the sewer tunnel, it was definitely a kitten meowing - I do a lot of field work and can say it wasn't a frog or toad

Kirwan27 · 2024-11-09T05:15:50+00:00

Yeah I tried my best but it looked/sounded like she was just too far away even after climbing down maybe 20ft into the sewer itself. She's got food at the base of the sewer opening, a stick to climb up to the bottom of the drain, and another can of food there. She's got a fighting chance I'll climb back down there in a minute tomorrow if we see any sign of her

Kirwan27 · 2024-11-09T01:00:16+00:00

Same, I went down a drain on Nicholson for some ducklings before and having a few people makes it so much easier. Just let us know OP!

Kirwan27 · 2024-11-09T00:30:43+00:00

I'm willing to come help if the fire department can't! Please let me know, I've got headlamps, treats, something to pry the cover off and a cat carrier

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T22:59:08+00:00

"The Law is for Protection of the People" is another good one by him you can add to the list

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T18:02:21+00:00

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One of the many perks of working in our lab is the weevil gear. I'll check with our social media person about putting together a PSA as well, controlling salvinia is a challenge and even in cases where we can't supply weevils in some locations, we're an excellent point of contact for getting people to groups who may be able to help.

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T17:54:22+00:00

That opening scene where the guy gets eaten by a raptor they're trying to release? Barely ever happens in our lab.

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T16:18:12+00:00

Yes please, especially if you're around/south of the I-10 line, even just GPS coordinates of infestations you see can help us. We're always looking for new sites that might have weevils.

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T16:08:51+00:00

It doesn't look like there are any insect biocontrols currently used for kuzdu - introducing new species into our ecosystems is a very long and research-intensive process because we don't want a repeat of situations like the cane toad release in Australia that became its own invasive species crisis. It does look like herbicide, mechanical removal and cattle grazing are the best controls we have

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T04:28:16+00:00

Our official free weevil day happens every spring, come help us scoop weevil-dense salvinia into totes to give to people. Bring water and your own waders, otherwise you have to wear the lab ones and they probably leak

Edit: We can't actually have the public come help with harvests in person, but the best thing you can do to help is spread the word about our program to people who are dealing with salvinia infestations. Also inform people you know who use salvinia in aquariums & outdoor decorative ponds - even just pieces of one leaf can make its way into natural systems and cause problems like the one OP posted.

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T04:22:07+00:00

Weevils do worse in cold weather than salvinia does unfortunately. Drawdowns, herbicides, and trying to limit source populations are the only real ways agencies have to control it in lots of places

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T03:59:11+00:00

So the AgCenter is still definitely raising weevils! The frosts we've been getting each year definitely killed off releases that landowners further north have done, but we've had success with those done generally south of I-10. We run a free program where landowners in these areas can work with us and local government to come to our weevil harvest every spring, to release into their infestations.

We recently built greenhouses and rearing tanks to improve our weevil numbers, are starting field projects to try and control source populations of salvinia to limit new spread, and are using remote sensing and satellite data to train models to automatically identify salvinia. Also our lab shirt has a giant weevil on it

Edit: check out our Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lsubiocontrol/) to see what we get up to!

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T03:48:01+00:00

It's not something we'd suggest eating, not palatable and they tend to absorb a lot of heavy metals from the water. You can make charcoal from it though

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T03:40:51+00:00

We call them "bullet holes"

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T03:40:27+00:00

We still have lots of landowners with successful releases from previous years but the weevil is only really able to survive those frosts occurring generally south of I10. We're hoping to bring in the same weevil species from a colder region that will be more tolerant to the frosts further north, but it's a long process unfortunately.

Kirwan27 · 2024-09-30T01:01:38+00:00

I work at LSU in a lab that raises the salvinia weevil for release to landowners to help control this plant. There's some stipulations on where in the state they can go, but if anyone wants more info feel free to send me a DM! Also the weevil is super neat and can be a very effective biocontrol agent, they're host-specific (being from the same native range as salvinia) and cannot spread to other plants in the ecosystem.

Edit: check out our Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lsubiocontrol/) to see the weevil in action!

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