First time seeing this in my neighborhood in Somerville. Bummer. pic.twitter.com/VsgdDprG6a
— Kelsey Graham (@woolcarderbee) May 12, 2016
UPDATE/CORRECTION: The trees are only at risk; none of the bugs have actually been found in Somerville.
Somerville officials have marked 155 trees across the city for destruction because they're at risk for infestation bye the emerald ash borer, an insect originally from China that kills trees by, well, boring through them. Read more.
Boring bug. Photo by USDA. Used under this Creative Commons license.
State officials confirmed today a dread Emerald Ash Borer was found in a trap at the Arnold Arboretum earlier this month and that they are now working on a quarantine zone that would be similar to, if somewhat less strict, than the one recently lifted for Asian Longhorned Beetles.
The insect, named because of its bright green color and the way it bores into ash trees, "represents a serious threat to our ash trees,” DCR Commissioner Jack Murray said in a statement. “We are taking swift action to address the infestation, educate the public, and work to mitigate any impact an infestation could bring.”
The state yesterday announced all of Essex County goes under a tree and wood quarantine next week to try to keep destructive emerald ash borers from jumping from there to the rest of Eastern Massachusetts - such as the streets of Boston, where ash trees are common in street plantings.
State officials say emerald ash borers were discovered last month in Essex County.
The invasive, destructive pests, native to China, had previously been detected only in remote Dalton in the western part of the state.
Massachusetts officials say an emerald ash borer was found in Dalton in the western part of the state on Aug. 31, the first time the destructive pest has been detected in the state.
Alarmed that emerald ash borers (green beetles that, well, bore into ash trees) are now just 25 miles from the Massachusetts line, the state is recruiting volunteers to hunt for a particular kind of wasp that is often found near the borers, since they like to eat them.
The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is looking for teams of people in eastern and central Massachusetts willing to be trained in finding Cerceris fumipennis wasps, reports Jenn Forman Orth of the department's Introduced Pests Outreach Project.
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