Beware the Lanternfly?
Falling in love with a so-called invasive pest
Welcome to another edition of Willoughby Hills!
This newsletter explores topics like history, culture, work, urbanism, transportation, travel, agriculture, self-sufficiency, and more.
We recently decided to do a short getaway to New York City. Since we like to travel with our dog, we opted to camp in our RV at the Liberty Harbor RV Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
The park was simultaneously one of the nicest RV parks we’ve ever stayed in and one of the most basic. The parking spaces were close together and on gravel, with each site having a water and electrical hookup but no sewer connection (there was a separate dump site on premises). There was no pool, no game room, and no gift shop.
But the park didn’t need any of those amenities, as it was situated right on the water, adjacent to a marina. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were visible from most campsites (including ours) as was the skyline of Lower Manhattan. There was a water ferry to New York located right at the campground, and the PATH train into the city was about a 10 minute walk away. It made for a great and affordable base camp for visiting New York for a few days.
It was a little difficult taking our dog for a walk at this park because it was almost entirely gravel or asphalt and he’s used to doing his business in the lawn. The only greenery to be found in the campground were a few clumps of weeds that somehow were able to root in the gravel along the chain link fence line.
Because of this, I found myself taking him out of the RV park to try to find any little patch of lawn that I could in the adjacent neighborhood.
On one of my walks, I noticed an interesting looking insect. It was kind of a spotted brown color, but when it took flight, it revealed bold red and black wings. It looked like some kind of cross between a majestic butterfly and a simple moth. It also had quite a large body.
I only noticed one at first, but then as we were walking to pick up the subway later, my wife pointed some more out to me. There were several on the sidewalk, just kind of hanging out.
A man walked by who seemed to be a local and began violently stomping on one of the bugs. It looked like the kind of panicked way a person might stomp on something that has just caught fire, hoping that they can stop the flames from spreading. It was not the gingerly way one might kill an ant or snuff out a cigarette by swirling their toe. This guy meant business.
In that moment, I was dumbfounded. This beautiful insect that I had never seen prior to that day and which had so captivated my attention was clearly on this guy’s list.
My wife took note of it too and began Googling the insect.
It turns out that what I had so admired was a spotted lanternfly, an insect that is classified as a highly destructive invasive species.
The spotted lanternfly is a native of China and was first discovered in the U.S. in Pennsylvania in 2014. It’s believed that the bug was accidentally brought over in shipping containers.
In the last decade, it has quickly spread to 17 states, with its highest concentration in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
“Spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) is an invasive planthopper that feeds on a wide range of plants, including grapes, hops, stone fruits, and hardwood trees. When the spotted lanternfly feeds, it excretes a sticky, sugary fluid that causes sooty mold, which can further damage plants.”
It seems that the best course of action at the moment is to kill any lanternflies in known areas of infection and to report any new signs of infestation. According to the Penn State Extension, every little bit helps:
“Each female will lay up to 100 or more eggs in fall, so by destroying even one female, you are reducing the potential population for the future.”
I had never heard of or encountered a spotted lanternfly until I was in New Jersey, but when we reached Connecticut and stopped to dump our RV tanks at a highway rest area, I noticed a sign at the dump station.
I became concerned that we may be unknowingly carrying this harmful insect with us back to Massachusetts, although in looking at news reports, it’s already making its home here too. While it isn’t considered an infestation in my town yet, it has infested the nearby communities of Agawam, Springfield, and Holyoke, plus some other places closer to Boston.
In some ways, the spread of the spotted lanternfly has reminded me of the early days of the pandemic: a threatening bug accidentally brought over from China, a slow confirmed spread, but a trajectory that could see this insect soon spread all over the U.S. and beyond with no real way to stop it.
But it also begs the question of whether the best course of action is simply to snuff out as many bugs as you can when you happen to spot them?
Many years ago, I covered a similar infestation. The Asian citrus psyllid is a bug that bites the leaves of citrus trees in Florida and causes a disease known as citrus greening.
I had interviewed a local extension officer near Orlando who told me that citrus farmers were simply dumping huge amounts of pesticides on their crops with the hope that it would kill the psyllid and prevent greening. It didn’t work, but it left plenty of pesticide residue in the orange juice we were all consuming (and has caused the price of juice to skyrocket because of diminished supply).
We ended up partnering with Uncle Matt’s Organic to tell our story because organic growers had to find other ways to deal with citrus greening besides just dumping pesticides on the fields (the USDA Organic program does not allow the use of synthetic pesticides on products bearing the organic label). We discussed ways to make trees naturally more disease resistant, but even that hasn’t fully worked. Uncle Matt’s now reports that 50% of their Florida crop has been affected by citrus greening and they import increasingly amounts of orange juice from Mexico.
The U.S. is also increasingly importing orange juice from Brazil. Citrus greening is currently found in Florida, Georgia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, and California. It’s also spreading in Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, and Spain. Importing orange juice may be a short term fix, but it doesn’t actually solve the problem.
Whether it’s the Asian citrus psyllid, the spotted lanternfly, or any other number of pests, the question of how to manage these insects remains. In the case of the lanternfly, it is not just large, but also quite beautiful. Reconciling that beauty with its potential for harm reminded me a bit of an essay I wrote last year about appreciating “nature” (with a lower case “n”) in unexpected places.
So often, we think of nature as national parks, redwood forests, or sandy beaches. We see nature as separate and distinct from us- it’s a place we go, not a system to which we belong.
I get nervous when we judge any part of nature only by its economic impact. There’s an inherent beauty to the spotted lanternfly. It caught my eye the moment I first saw it. Should its life be snuffed out by any random passerby in Jersey City simply because it happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I have to be careful to not sound like a hypocrite. At our home, we work with a natural pest company that excludes ants, carpenter bees, mice, and more from our house. Every three weeks, the same company applies a botanical spray around the perimeter of our yard that repels mosquitoes and ticks.
Perhaps if I had always grown up around spotted lanternflies or if I had seen the destruction that can do firsthand, I would have less empathy for the little bugs. But something about killing something so beautiful strikes me as unsettling.
This may have been my first encounter with the insect, but given how fast it is spreading, I suspect I will be seeing a lot more of it soon.
Do you have experience with the spotted lanternfly or with other so-called invasive pests? What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for reading Willoughby Hills! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Related Reading
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.
Hey Heath, good read. For a little context, many invasive species that have been identified can be very economically and recreationally detrimental, one of these being the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF). If you spot one in MA, folks are asked to take a photo and report it to massnrc.org/pests (similar setup in other states). They say: “Spotted lanternfly is a sap-feeding insect that has caused significant impacts to vineyards, orchards, and other agricultural commodities in states where it has become established. SLF not only harms grapevines, maples, hops, blueberries, and over 100 other host plants, but has the potential to negatively impact outdoor recreation through the swarming behavior that occurs during mating season.”
Other invasive insects (Asian Long Horned Beetle, Emerald Ash Borer) continue to impact sugar maple and ash trees impacting syrup and wood production, plus associated livelihoods. Much like some invasive plants, other invasive insects will out compete or prey upon native insects potentially pushing them into vulnerable status. Here in NW MA we are in a losing battle with the Emerald Ash Borer and losing Ash trees by the hundreds. The hope is another species preys upon an invasive to halt their spread. Hope this helps!