The Asian Longhorned Beetle rapidly kills hardwood trees and had plagued Chicago for some time, but officials now report that progress is being made in the fight against the beetle population. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan DNR)
The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China in packing materials and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
Transcript
The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more.
Chicago saw its first Asian Longhorned Beetle back in 1998. USDA and Chicago officials quickly destroyed more than fifteen hundred trees to stop the infestation. They also slapped a quarantine on the historic Ravenswood neighborhood, which prevented residents from removing tree cuttings from the area.
Now officials are lifting those restrictions, saying no one’s seen the bug in the area’s stately tree canopy for nearly two years. Joe McCarthy is the City of Chicago’s chief forester. He says a beetle hotline and a diligent press made the difference.
“There’s so much coverage of this thing, that the beetle is on TV, out in the papers, on front pages. And that’s how all the main infestations were found in the Chicago area.”
McCarthy points out that another Chicago neighborhood is still under quarantine.
The USDA is also fighting the Asian Longhorned Beetle in New York City and parts of New Jersey.
The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Transcript
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.
It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.
The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.
“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”
The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.
At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.
Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.
“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”
Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.
And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.
Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.
“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”
Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.
Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.
If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.
An old insect pest is becoming a problem again because of new approaches to pest management. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
An old insect pest is becoming a problem again because of new approaches to pest
management.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
You’ve probably heard this little bedtime gem… “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t
let the bedbugs bite.” But, most of us have never even seen a bedbug. That might be
changing.
The bedbug is making a comeback.
Because of consumer’s health concerns, pest control
companies no
longer use insecticides that wipe out everything. That means some bugs are spared.
Cindy
Mannes is with the National Pest Management Association.
“So as a result, there might be other pests that may have been controlled 20 years
ago with a more
broad spectrum-type product that would have eliminated lots of other insect species.”
Bedbugs don’t spread diseases, but the little insect does bite, feeding on the
blood of its host.
Mannes says it only comes out at night and can hide anywhere dark, under cushions,
behind
pictures on the wall or under your covers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The infestation of Asian long-horned beetles is spreading in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
The infestation of Asian long-horned beetles is spreading in North America. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
An Asian long-horned beetle, about two inches long and black with white spots was found in an
industrial park outside of Toronto.
It arrived in packing material from Asia. And it burrowed into nearby trees – making this the first
infestation in Canada.
Forestry specialist Gordon Henry says the beetle poses a serious threat to Canada’s native
hardwoods.
“If it was to get into wild areas and attack maple trees, it would impact probably on tourism, it
would certainly pose a problem for anybody producing maple syrup, would also be a nuisance
pest for any homeowner who’s trying to grow one of the host trees.”
The beetle has also infested trees in Chicago, New York City and New Jersey.
Henry says it takes years to fully eradicate them.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
At least one city in the region has passed a controversial law that would ban or severely restrict the use of pesticides. Environmental activists are calling the move a great victory. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
At least one city in the Great Lakes region has passed a
controversial law that would ban or severely restrict the use of pesticides.
Environmental activists are calling the move a great victory. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
For years, environmentalists have warned of the dangers associated with the overuse of
pesticides and herbicides, claiming that those chemicals are poisoning the land and
waters.
Now Toronto’s city council has passed a bylaw aimed at reducing pesticide use.
Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental Alliance says it’s an amazing win.
“We have a bylaw that’s going to protect children, it’s going to protect the environment.
We saw a city council that has decided to listen to the citizens of Toronto and the doctors
and nurses instead of falling under pressure from the industry lobby.”
The debate leading up to the vote was bitter and emotionally charged. One
representative of a lawn care company was ejected.
Lorne Hepworth is a spokesman for the pesticide manufacturers. He says the ones to
suffer from the new bylaw will be homeowners.
“At the end of the day what this amounts to is a deterioration in their property values,
you know, score one for bugs and dandelions and zero for the property owner.”
Under the bylaw anyone wanting to use pesticides will have to make a case to an advisory
board. It will be made up of representatives from the city, environmental groups and
lawn care companies.
The new bylaw will not be enforced until 2006.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.
An insect called the Emerald Ash Borer has already destroyed thousands of ash trees in Ontario and Michigan…and in February, it was discovered invading the northwest corner of Ohio. Agriculture officials there are trying to contain the bug before it spreads to still more states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Transcript
An insect called the Emerald Ash Borer has already destroyed thousands of ash trees in Ontario
and Michigan…and in February, it was discovered invading the northwest corner of Ohio.
Agriculture officials there are trying to contain the bug before it spreads to still more states.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
At stake across the Great Lakes region: millions of dollars of wood that’s used for furniture,
cabinets, flooring, and baseball bats. That’s why Ohio agriculture officials have quarantined an
area around Toledo, banning residents from transporting ash wood out of the area. They’ve also
sprayed pesticide on nearby un-infected trees and taken even more drastic action among the 4,000
trees the beetles had already struck.
David Shlike works for the Ohio Agriculture Department.
“At ground zero, out a quarter of a mile, we cut everything, took it down. And had to chip it. We
hauled these chips to Michigan, and they were incinerated. It’s just a devastating pest and that
pest is going to be hatching out here anytime now between the 1st of May and the 15th of May,
and we were trying to take away its food source.”
It will be a few more months before it’s clear whether or not Ohio’s action has stopped the bugs’
advance.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.
Scientists are working to control a new non-native beetle that’s destroying hundreds of thousands of ash trees in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
Scientists are working to control a new non-native beetle that’s destroying hundreds of
thousands of ash trees in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Erin Toner reports:
The Emerald Ash Borer is native to Asia, and probably made its way to the United States
through wood packing materials. Therese Poland is an entomologist with the
USDA. She says so far, the beetles have destroyed 100 thousand ash trees in southeastern
Michigan and southern Ontario.
“We think it’s been here for at least five years and even with some of the other exotic
beetles that have been discovered in recent years, when they were first discovered they
weren’t as widespread as this.”
Poland says there’s a quarantine over the infested areas to keep the beetles from moving
to new areas. Officials are inspecting nurseries to make sure they’re not selling infested
trees. They’re also checking whether tree care companies are disposing of trees properly.
But officials admit they probably won’t be able to stop people who unknowingly transport
infested firewood or yard waste.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
The West Nile virus is spreading, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports… researchers say that over time… our bodies might become immune to the virus:
Transcript
The West Nile virus is spreading. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports, over time our bodies might become immune to the virus:
You may have seen images in the news of the first victims of WNV – dead crows. Or perhaps you’ve seen images of trucks driving through neighborhoods spraying insecticide. The problem is a potentially fatal virus that’s spread by mosquitoes. But officials say the chances of contracting serious illness from the mosquito is extremely low.
Dr. Michael Gochfeld is with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He says that West Nile virus is here to stay, but that our body’s defenses will likely be our best ally:
“There are parts of Egypt, for example, where 100% of the people have protective antibodies against West Nile, so I think we’re going to see sort of a natural immunity building up in the population, and it may build up pretty quickly.”
Gochfeld says that in the meantime health departments should focus their efforts on educating the public about precautions to take. Things like wearing long sleeves, using insect repellant, and eliminating small pockets of standing water where mosquitoes breed. For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.
If you’ve ever had cockroaches, you know how hard it is to get rid
of them. Many people turn to exterminators or pesticide sprays. But
often, roach-killing products are made with neurotoxins that may be
harmful to pets and humans. Now, some scientists have come up with a
different approach: a kind of birth control… for cockroaches. The
Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson explains:
People have long considered the burrowing mayfly a pest. And 40 years
ago, they were glad when the clouds of bugs virtually disappeared from
the Great Lakes. But the mayfly is making a comeback. And as the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, scientists say it’s a sign
of a healthier water system:
The Asian Longhorned Beetle rapidly kills hardwood trees and had plagued Chicago for some time, but officials now report that progress is being made in the fight against the beetle population. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan DNR)