News On Vermont Invasives

Below, you'll find news about the initiatives of our partnerships. You can also see upcoming events in our calendar or subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on our work.

Friday, March 15, 2013

There is hope, Ohio. Today, New Jersey officials declared that the state is free of Asian longhorned beetles after a 10-year fight.

The Star-Ledger reports: "After more than a decade, we can declare New Jersey is free of this invasive pest," state Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher said at a press conference in Linden, one of four towns in Middlesex and Union counties where...

Friday, March 1, 2013

Volunteers, state and federal staff team up to survey for EAB

by Caitlin Cusack

Finding an early infestation of the Emerald Ash Borer is much like searching for a needle in a haystack—so many trees, far too many places to hide, such a small insect.  Yet, Johnetta B. Cole reminds us that “Faced with what seems like an...

Monday, February 25, 2013

Windshield surveys of urban trees are not for the faint of stomach; at least that’s what students of Tim Parson’s Middlebury College “Trees and the Urban Forest” course discovered while counting Middlebury’s roadside ash population. 

Monday, February 25, 2013

New York will expand a quarantine on ash wood products across most of the southern part of the state to combat the spread of the invasive emerald ash borer.  This invasive tree and forest pest has killed tens of millions of ash trees in areas where populations have become established.  Costs to communities for removal and disposal of dead, dying and hazardous municipal trees, and...

Friday, February 22, 2013

BOSTON — Massachusetts officials said Thursday that they’ve ordered a quarantine on certain wood in the state’s westernmost county to help contain an invasive beetle that’s killed millions of ash trees nationwide.

Beginning March 1, no hardwood firewood, ash nursery stock or untreated ash lumber will be allowed outside Berkshire County, where the emerald ash borer was found last summer...

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- As the emerald ash borer ravages North American ash trees, threatening the trees' very survival, a team of entomologists and engineers may have found a way to prevent the spread of the pests.

Emerald ash borers (EABs), a type of beetle native to Asia, first appeared in the U.S. about 20 years ago. They are now moving east from Michigan, killing ash trees on the...

Sunday, February 10, 2013

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens and New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (DAM) Commissioner Darrel J. Aubertine today announced that the state will propose a revision to its Emerald ash borer (EAB) quarantine order to include all of the State south of the New York State Thruway, and east to the state border, except for...

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

PUTNEY -- As Forest Protection Forester with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, it is Jim Esden's job to track the spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that feeds on the sap of hemlock trees.

First discovered in Vermont in 2007, the insect has been showing up in greater numbers and was first discovered in Bennington County last year.

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Friday, January 11, 2013

Every year USDA-APHIS-PPQ and various state agencies (VT Agency of Agriculutre and VT Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation) set up insect traps to see if any exotic wood borers have taken up residency in Vermont.   Several species of insects are considered “Target Species” or ‘Species of Concern’ including emerald ash borer, Asian longhorned beetle and over 25 more species of...