The Beetles Invasion

Driving up Frederick Road from downtown EC I spotted this billboard. I wasn’t sure what this was all about so I did a u turn and snapped a photo. From the website I learned that the adult Emerald Ash Borer beetles “do little harm to ash trees, yet the same cannot be said for its larvae. EAB larvae tunnel under the bark and disrupt the systems that transport food and water to the tree, eventually starving and killing it.”

This little bugger has been responsible for the untimely deaths of many an ash tree. Since the larvae is often found in firewood one of the best prevention methods is a “burn it where you buy it” policy.

The website also informs us that the only infected counties in Maryland are southern PG county and northern Charles county. It sort of makes you wonder what the billboard is doing in HoCo.

The beetle that is bugging HoCo is the Pine Shoot Beetle. According to this story by Frank D. Roylance in The Sun, Howard, Baltimore, Carroll, and Harford counties have been added to the quarantine area “in a bid to slow the pest's advance toward valuable loblolly pine timberlands on the Eastern Shore.”

“Part of a federal program, the Maryland quarantine requires that all shipments of cut pine Christmas trees, pine nursery stock, pine logs, stumps and lumber with bark attached, and pine bark mulch be certified beetle-free before they can be moved outside the quarantine zone.”

Invasive bugs have become a fact of life in our global economy. The Emerald Ash Borer comes from Asia while the pine shoot beetle has been traced back to Cleveland.