Asian Invasion Threatens America
These tiny invaders may not look very dangerous, but they've already proved deadly to millions of some of America's most beloved natives: our forests of lovely ash trees, already being destroyed in more than a dozen states. How could this have happened and what do you think we can do about it?
As great as the destruction of America's forests has been, it's difficult to realize that it's happened in little more than a decade. But it's believed that the Emerald ash borer was introduced into the United States 11 years ago.
It arrived as part of shipments of ash wood products which originated in Asia.
Now billions of ash trees in the United States are threatened.
That Emerald ash borer is a tiny beetle which doesn't do much harm to ash or other trees during its adult form.
But larvae of the tiny creature are voracious eaters of ash trees, destroying them almost silently and often without notice -- until the tree is already dying.
Millions of ash trees in more than a dozen American states have already been killed by the voracious beetle.
This tiny predator now poses an unprecedented threat to America's forests, according to Michigan Department of Agriculture's John Bedford, who's quoted by AP as warning that:
"This pest is one like we've never dealt with before."
"It doesn't seem to leave much in its wake."
Bedford laments that, in parts of Michigan, "a majority of the ash trees are dead and gone."
U.S. Forest Service's Noel Schneeberger concludes that:
"We need to pay attention to planting the right trees for the right place in urban areas and diversify the urban canopy."
"We don't plant one street full of ash, for example, we plant a variety of species."
Why do you think we should care about whether ash trees survive the beetle's infestation?
[Views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of CompuServe, Netscape, any government, agency, or news organization.]
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