Have you seen purple plastic boxes hanging by a metal hook on tree limbs and wondered what they were? They began showing up recently in the central Shenandoah Valley and elsewhere throughout Virginia to catch the emerald ash borer, a destructive Asian beetle that has destroyed millions of ash trees in the Midwest and eastern United States and Canada.
The traps, reminiscent of a child’s toy, are rectangular plastic devices about 24×14 inches in size with a natural plant oil bait and covered with eco-friendly glue so the bugs stick to the exterior. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services plans to set out 5,500 traps in a continuing effort to prevent an out-of-control infestation beyond known regions. The color purple was chosen because it’s the most likely to attract the beetles.
It is believed the beetles were accidentally introduced to the United States from Asia in 2002 which was when they were first found in Michigan and later that year in Fairfax County,Virginia.
Today, there is a quarantine of the northern Virginia localities of Arlington, Clarke, Fairfax, Frederick, Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, Alexandria, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Manassas, Manassas Park and Winchester to prevent the spread from infested to non-infested areas. The quarantine affects those who deal with firewood, ash wood, and ash nursery stock.
In Shenandoah National Park, a short fifty-five miles from Fairfax, firewood from outside the Park has been banned to try and prevent campers from unknowingly bringing the beetle into the protected area. The ban, put in place in March 2010, is an attempt to keep the pest outside the park boundaries and save the ash tree population that makes up 4% of the park’s forest. Rangers would like to prevent widespread devastation such as what happened when the Eastern Hamlocks were invaded by woolly adelgids, another Asian pest that has been at work the past century.
Forestry officials are taking the emerald ash borer seriously and the purple plastic boxes are yet another step in trying to prevent massive devastation of the shady ash trees.
Photo by Lynn R. Mitchell
