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Meet Ryan Kleinert,
a sophmore who has taken an unusual path
to the University of Rhode Island.
Yeah, I grew up in New Jersey.
I grew up in suburbia.
I'm surrounded by strip malls and
as soon as I, I had this innate love
of wilderness and of plants and animals,
and I knew that I wanted something more.
I decided right after high school to go
live in the southern Appalachian wilderness
of western North Carolina and to just
immerse myself in biodiversity and to
learn to study botany,
and surround myself around plants and animals.
And then after that I decided to, that I wanted
to live up north, I wanted to live by lakes.
I wanted to live somewhere that was glaciated.
So I moved to the Adirondack Mountains and
lived in a little cabin for about two years
without running water, without electricity.
Spent a lot of time canoeing, skiing,
hiking, bushwhacking, and just studying botany
and just becoming as intimately connected
to that bioregion as I possibly could.
I found solace, but I realized
I wanted something more, that I
realized I felt a little retreatist,
and decided to go back to school
to pursue a formal education
and I wanted my, I want my life to have
an impact on this world.
Ryan is conducting research funded by
URI's Coastal Fellows program,
mapping and collecting inventory on
invasive plant species that are over-taking
wildlife areas around Rhode Island.
The intention behind this project is to,
it's an early response, to find
the invasives in the refuge,
know exactly where they are,
and to go back and remove them
before they can get a foothold.
Hopefully, ideally removing all the
invasives and all the seeds present.
Some of the basic plants that I'm looking for
and coming accross include Oriental Bittersweet,
Multiflora Rose, Privit, Japanese Knotweed.
They're an issue because invasive plants,
they displace natives,
they take over an area and absolutely
consume everything in their path.
You can see how it grows and just
consumes everything, just creating these
thick mats and nothing else can grow,
creating this monotypic, sterile area.
A lot of these invasive plants were brought here
intentionally for, to curb erosion,
or to provide food for wildlife.
Some others were planted intentionally
for ornamentals and they're just escaped.
Others just came from, they're just
shipped here unintentionally and
just exploded once they got here.
Definitely a big problem for Rhode Island.