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Moths exacting heavier toll
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Article RatingGypsy moths plagued Central Pennsylvania earlier this year, stripping leaves from the trees and infesting almost anything in their path.
“I’d go outside to hang clothes and I’d have to shake out my hair. They were in my hair, they were everywhere,” Carol Shetter said.
“At our home this summer, there were no leaves on the trees. It looked like winter,” Kay Heller said. “You could walk outside on a windy day and they’d be all over you.”
“Gypsy moths somehow got into our shed and infested it,” Karen Rudy added. “You couldn’t go outside, you couldn’t hang your laundry out, you couldn’t wash your car.”
That was this year. Gypsy moths are expected to be worse throughout the Cumberland Valley next year.
Shetter, Heller and Rudy, of South Middleton Township, complained to township supervisors about the gypsy moths at a recent board meeting.
“Something has to be done,” Heller said.
Forestry bureau experts identify the gypsy moth as one of the most destructive forest pests in Pennsylvania.
Technically, it’s not the moths that do damage to the trees, it’s the caterpillars.
Gypsy moth caterpillars feed on tree leaves in late April or May, sometimes completely stripping trees, which makes them vulnerable to disease and death.
Typically, in July and August the caterpillars go into the pupal stage and then become moths. The brown-speckled male moth flies in an erratic pattern, while the white female moth doesn’t fly n she lays eggs that will overwinter until the following year.
What gypsy moths eat
Gypsy moth caterpillars feed on more than 300 species of trees and shrubs in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The caterpillars prefer oak, apple, alder, aspen, basswood, birch, poplar, willow, hawthorn, hemlock, tamarack, pine, spruce and witch hazel.
They usually avoid ash, butternut, black walnut, locust, sycamore, tulip poplar, ferns, mountain laurel, red bud and rhododendron.
Where did they come from?
The gypsy moth was accidentally introduced into Massachusetts in l869 by Leopold Trouvelot, who was attempting to breed the insect for silk production. Some of the caterpillars escaped from his back yard facility, and by 1902, they had spread through New England to New York and New Jersey.
According to Penn State’s Department of Entomology, the gypsy moth was first detected in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties in northeastern Pennsylvania in l932, and infestation moved south and westward along the mountain ridges.
During the ’30s and ’40s, it continued to spread to Pike, Lackawanna, Wayne, Monroe, and Carbon counties and, by 1969, had spread west of the Susquehanna River.
During the late ’70s and early ’80s, the moths infested Centre, Blair, Huntingdon and Clearfield counties, causing heavy defoliation and killing trees.
By 1980, 38 Pennsylvania counties were infested, and the moths have moved as far west as Minnesota.
Why are they so bad now?
Gypsy moths infest areas in three-year cycles, with populations reaching outbreak levels every five to 10 years.
Populations can be controlled with spraying and through natural means, such as other insect predators, fungi and viruses that attack the moths.
“Spraying helps contain the widespread gypsy moth damage we have seen in the past, but the major controlling factor is, and will continue to be, the prevalence of a gypsy moth fungus in our woodlands,” said Dr. Donald A. Eggen, forest health manager with the state Bureau of Forestry.
“In the past two years, we’ve not had a wet spring, so the viruses and fungi that regulated moth numbers … didn’t keep the growth gradual,” explained John Bitner, Cumberland County vector control chief.
What’s it like across the state?
According to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 700,000 acres of wooded land across the state were defoliated by gypsy moths in 2006. This year, about a million acres were defoliated throughout the state.
“We know there were reports of severe defoliation in some areas of the state, and increased requests from counties for DCNR spraying next spring reflect the scope of these gypsy moth infestations,” said DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis.
Historically, other years have been worse. The early 1990s had 4.4 million acres of woodland defoliated. The early 1980s had more than 2 million acres of defoliation.
The effects
It’s estimated that a deciduous tree could withstand two or three years of defoliation before it dies off, depending on other factors, such as amount of precipitation and other stresses on the tree.
Many evergreen trees, however, could be stripped by gypsy moths and never regain green growth.
“This matter impacts everybody,” said Monroe Township Supervisor Kevin Miller. “The people who live in the mountains, people who walk the trails, the people driving by to see the mountains and the people who hunt (are all affected).”
“People comment on the scenic beauty looking out on the mountains and seeing those trees,” South Middleton Supervisor Tom Faley said. “We can’t shut our eyes and let that plague run over us.”
“Monroe Township does not need to see the destruction that the gypsy moth can do to a mountain,” Miller said, citing Fulton County’s refusal to spray in 1988 as an example of what not to do.
“The gypsy moth destroyed all the oaks,” Miller explained. “As the years passed, the dead trees became a hazard by falling in windy and rainy conditions. The potential for fire increased and the scenery was poor for many years, close to a decade.”
Preventative measures
The state can spray, using two types of biological insecticides -n bacillus thuringiensis and Gypchek, a naturally occurring virus specific to gypsy moth larvae. No chemical insecticides are used for treatment, according to state officials.
The goal of spraying is to prevent more than a 30 percent defoliation of trees and reduce tree fatalities, according to Bitner.
In order to qualify for spraying, an area must be forested, a residential structure must stand on it, it must be at least 25 acres (neighboring homes can be counted together) and there must be at least 250 gypsy moth egg masses per acre.
Spraying is done by helicopter. Officials from county Vector Control have already assessed area properties and programmed coordinates into a global positioning system so that pilots can easily determine where and where not to spray, if and when the time comes.
“One application should be effective,” Bitner said, explaining that the spray would prevent areas from more than 30 percent defoliation. “That’s not always acceptable to homeowners. You will still have caterpillars afterwards.”
The state Forestry Department will be responsible for organizing, scheduling and execution of the overall program. Cumberland County is responsible for the designation of areas that meet the minimum spray requirements and for overall coordination of the program in Cumberland County.
Last spring, the state sprayed 65,000 acres statewide in 19 counties, including Cumberland, Dauphin and Franklin.
In Cumberland County, 2,900 privately owned acres were sprayed, paid for by county coffers. In addition, 170 acres at King’s Gap State Park, 174 acres at Colonel Denning State Park and 1,900 acres in Michaux State Forest (which also includes part of Franklin county) were sprayed.
The cost of spraying in 2007 was about $1.8 million. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service’s Forest Health Protection Unit contributed about $860,000; the state paid about $914,000.
Gov. Edward Rendell’s 2008 budget earmarks $3 million for the 2008 spraying. But surveys indicate 350,000 acres statewide will need to be sprayed and, at the cost of $30 to $40 per acre for spraying, the state could be facing a $10-million to $13-million tab.
And there is a question of how much federal funding the state will receive next year.
“We expect some funds, but we can’t predict how much at this time,” DiBerardinis said.
The state typically charges counties a portion of its cost -n $17 per acre n- to spray.
Cumberland County officials have designated about 16,500 acres eligible for spraying in 2008, most along the foot of the North and South mountains, bringing their estimated cost for 2008 to $280,000.
However, Cumberland commissioners have decided they will not help pay the costs of spraying for gypsy moths in 2008, because of next year’s expected budget crunch, including a planned prison expansion and 911 call center construction.
That leaves municipalities stuck with the bill if they want to fight the insects.
Local feedback
“I can see that it’s a health safety and welfare issue, but I question the wisdom of the county to come out and say they don’t want to pay for it,” Middlesex Township Supervisor Victor Stabile said. “I don’t consider it prudent to push the cost onto municipalities. I hate to criticize our people, but they’re absolutely wrong on this one. If they think they’re the only ones who have a budget crunch, they can look again. Everyone goes through the same problems.”
If a municipality decides to pay for the spraying, it can remove the money from its general fund or take the money from homeowners whose land will be sprayed.
South Middleton Township has the most amount of land in the county that has been designated for spraying.
“We have two choices,” said South Middleton Township Supervisor Tom Faley. “Ignore it or plan for it.”
Some municipalities are considering asking landowners to contribute money to have their land sprayed. The South Middleton board hasn’t decided yet whether to pay for it or ask landowners to pony up the cash.
Penn Township has sent letters to property owners asking for help to pay for spraying.
But it’s not just cost that elected officials are worried about.
Some township supervisors are wondering what will happen if some municipalities decide to spray, but others do not.
“This is not an issue that can be addressed on a piecemeal basis,” Stabile said. “What happens when we do it and Silver Spring does it, but Mt. Holly doesn’t?”
Local officials will get more information on the gypsy moths this week when county officials plan to meet with them Nov. 7.
State game lands and the Appalachian Trail
State and federal lands have been affected by the moths.
“We know 93,000 acres of state games were defoliated in 2007,” said Jerry Feaser of the Game Commission. That includes 34,681 in the southcentral region, which includes Cumberland, Adams and Franklin counties.
“We are looking to spray next year. We estimate we’ll need to spray 44,500 acres of state game lands throughout the state,” Feaser said.
The cost to the Game Commission: $1.5 million.
Feaser said 27,795 acres will be sprayed in the southcentral region, which is significantly more spray acreage than other regions.
“We are really focused on the southcentral region,” he said.
Included in the planned spray area is part of state game land 230 in North Middleton and Middlesex townships near the Perry County border.
One area not on next year’s spray list is 730 acres of game land on the South Mountain in South Middleton.
“We’re focusing on areas most in need,” Feaser said. “That game land was not identified based on our egg mass survey as being at a critical mass in comparison to other game lands. We certainly are not going to be able to spray every acre and we had to draw the line somewhere.”
The federal government also owns forested land in Cumberland County
The National Park Service, which holds the Appalachian Trail, hasn’t assessed gypsy moth damage in Pennsylvania yet.
“We know there’s a problem, but we don’t have any details on acreage there,” said Kent Schwarzkopf, natural resource specialist for the National Park Service/Appalachian Trail, based in Harper’s Ferry, W.Va. He said there are plans to assess Pennsylvania in the next few months.
“This is a fairly new issue for us,” Schwarzkopf said. He said the park service has assessed other states and plans to spray areas in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia next year.
“We haven’t seen damage like this for many years,” he said.
n Sentinel reporters Naomi Creason, Alex Roarty and Jason Scott contributed to this report.
