Unfortunately, they compete with native berries like salmon berries on the west coast and other shrubs in the same habitat. Unlike salmon berries and native shrubs though, despite being a good food source, they are poor habitat for birds and small mammals that would otherwise occupy that canopy level and habitat.

The native blackberries are small trailing vines that grow below salmonberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries, spirea, dogwoods, elder berries, mountain ash, salal, cottonwoods, alders and more. They grow amongst foamlflowers and other small herbaceous plants. All those plants provide ideal habitat and forage for a huge variety of animal species.

Himalayan and evergreen blackberries are large woody shrubs that overtake everything else and grow into a thick tangled impenetrable mass of thorns not ideal for many native animal species.

An area that should have between 6 to a dozen species of plants will instead have 1 because of the way invasive blackberries grow.