Asian Long-Horned Beetles Under Control In Chicago

For instance, the Chicago suburb of Addison has evidence of Asian long-horned beetles in only one tree, according to a recent Daily Herald article. The article said officials from DuPage County and the Illinois Department of Agriculture confirmed that beetle egg sites were discovered in a lone Chinese elm tree in Addison.

However, the Addison area has not been nearly as infested with the beetle as the Ravenswood suburb on Chicago’s north side. In the first few months of the outbreak alone, more than 800 infested trees were found in Ravenswood. This year that number is down to about 50 trees, according to the Daily Herald.

WORKING ON ERADICATION. The drop in beetle population in Chicago can be credited to the city and Illinois state governments’ strict quarantines for areas of infestation. The city, state and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) quickly eliminated the transfer of any tree materials from areas infested with the pest. Trees that showed any sign of infestation - from evidence of larval feeding, egg deposition notches or actual beetles - were scheduled to be cut down and chipped at specified locations within the quarantine areas.

Although a tree could be marked for removal at any time, Rex Bastian, vice president of field education for The Care Of Trees, Chicago, Ill., said the removal is typically done in the winter because of the Asian long-horned beetle’s life cycle. "During wintertime, the insect is inside the tree," he explained. "They do the removals in the winter so they can destroy the overwintering insect inside the tree." In their wintertime larval stage, the long-horned beetles destroy trees by boring holes deep into their trunks and cutting off their circulation.

The remove-and-destroy eradication practice has also been successful because of the beetle’s predictability and limited mobility. "The beetle is not a type of insect that spreads real easily. It’s happy to lay eggs back in the tree it emerged from," explained Bastian.

Because the beetle doesn’t wander very far from its home, Chicago agriculture officials have been able to limit the size of quarantine zones and also treat trees in areas surrounding those zones with the systemic insecticide imidacloprid. The Care Of Trees had the opportunity to bid against other companies for the job of treating trees, however, Bastian said that wasn’t an option for the company. "It was a pretty big job and we have so many other clients to take care of that we just didn’t really want to get involved with that. That was our choice," he explained.

The combination of tree removal and tree insecticide injections seem to be working well to control the Asian long-horned beetle. However, Bastian said regulations on imports - the beetle apparently arrived in the United States in solid-wood packing materials in a shipment from China - improved efforts by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and public education have also contributed to control of the pest.

BEETLE EDUCATION. Public education came early on in the form of a media blitz. Bastian said initial media reports may have been a little sensational, however, he admits that the exposure probably helped. "People were finding anything that had long antennae on it and were saying, ‘I’ve got the beetle,’" he noted. "In some cases they weren’t even close, but the state was very clear that if you even think it might be, make sure you bring it to someone’s attention."

Education for The Care Of Trees also came in the form of training its staff about the beetle. "There was the training issue with all of our arborists and all our field people to make sure they knew how to recognize the damage if they ran into it - what the beetles look like, what the damage looks like, what the egg notches look like - so that if they did happen to run across the insect sometime, they could say, ‘Hey, this is the Asian long-horned beetle," and then we could start the notification procedure."

That training for The Care Of Trees also involved the company’s salespeople and customer service representatives because they needed to be aware of when a service call was going to be done in a quarantined area. It helped to have this information ahead of time so crews could be reminded to follow quarantine rules. "It was more of a communication issue than anything else," said Bastian. "You had to make sure that everybody understood what the rules were and that you obeyed the rules. The fines were pretty steep if you got caught carrying wood out of the quarantine zone."

Evidence of the Asian long-horned beetle has certainly dropped off in the Chicago area, but more information will be known by July, since the pest typically emerges from trees by then.

"It looks like they’re getting a pretty good handle on the infestation here in the Chicago-land area," said Bastian. "It’s moving in the right direction."

For more information about The Care Of Trees, a professional arboricultural firm with locations in Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, visit www.thecareoftrees.com.