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<span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">Dear Biocontrol Practitioner,</span></div>
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<div style="margin:0px"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">I'm reaching out to you on behalf of Ian Pearse, USGS Research Ecologist, who is working on a USGS-led effort to map the releases
of biological control agents for weeds in North America. Ian and his team are getting in touch with biocontrol practitioners, developers, and scientists throughout the country. </span></div>
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<div style="margin:0px"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">Ian would like to ask if you would be willing to share your release information on biocontrol agents with him and his team,
so that they can create a better map of where biocontrol agents have been released and persist in North America. We think this is important, so that biocontrol practitioners have a better sense of where (outside of their individual jurisdictions) biocontrol
agents have been released and are thriving. </span></div>
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<div style="margin:0px"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">At its most basic, Ian is interested in information on where specific biocontrol agents (for example, Russian knapweed gall
wasp) were released (for example, GPS coordinate or a place name). He also wants to make this effort as easy as possible for you, and he is happy to accept records in whatever form you might have them (for example in your own spreadsheet, scans of release
documents or field notebooks, etc). He can even receive paper copies of records and would be happy to coordinate with you if you have records in that format. Ian is also happy to coordinate with you on any privacy concerns where those exist. </span></div>
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<div style="margin:0px"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">The goal is to ultimately make these records public via the SIMP / iBiocontrol website https://www.ibiocontrol.org/simp.cfm
(run in conjunction with EDDMaps), and to use these records to make better range maps of established biocontrol agents in North America.</span></div>
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<div style="margin:0px"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">Thank you for your help with this project! And please let Ian know if there are others in your area who they should reach out
to. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to Ian, his contact information is listed below.</span></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;"><b>Ian Pearse, Research Ecologist</b></span></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;"><b>ipearse@usgs.go</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;">USGS Ft Collins Science Center,NRRC Bldg C</span><br>
</b></div>
<div><span style="margin:0px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color:black;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Calibri Light", "Helvetica Light", sans-serif;"><b>Fort Collins,
CO 80525</b></span></span><br>
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</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:12.8px"><a href="mailto:aleksandra_voznitza@nps.gov" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif; font-size:10pt">aleksandra_voznitza@nps.gov</span></a></span></div>
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