Green gobblin’
Setting up safeguards against the emerald ash borer
The town, the province and the federal government are all watching for the arrival of a deadly green bug in Truro.
The emerald ash borer, native to China and with no predators here in Canada, has already killed millions of ash trees since its arrival in North America in the 1990s and threatens billions more, according to the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency.
Scientists with the Canadian Forest Service say the cost of treatment, removal and replacement of ash trees in Canadian municipalities could reach $2 billion over a 30-year period.
“It’s east of Montreal now – it’s a day’s drive away,” says Andrew Williams, urban forestry co-ordinator with the Town of Truro.
The town has teamed up with CFIA to hang big green sticky traps in ash trees around the streets of Truro and in Victoria Park.
“When the bug first arrived in the Windsor-Detroit area, no one knew it was there for 10 years; they didn’t know until ash trees started dying. If we know when it gets here we can try and stop it before it spreads,” says Williams.
Most people believe the ash borer hitched a ride to North
America on imported wood packaging or crating material, Williams says.
The female ash borer lays its eggs in the bark of ash trees and the larvae eat the cambium – the layer that transports water and nutrients up and down the trunk – effectively strangling the tree.
An adult borer can fly up to 10 kilometres but generally does not travel far from the tree where it is born. People, however, have been unwittingly moving infested wood and
spreading the pest says Williams.
Information in a new pamphlet from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources says moving firewood any more than 80 km is a bad idea.
“The adults crawl out of infested pieces of wood and then go looking for an ash tree,” said Williams. “This is why we tell people buy it locally, buy it where you burn it.”
Jeff Ogden, forest health specialist at DNR, agrees limiting the distance wood is moved is the best way to contain the spread of many tree pests including emerald ash borer.
“On their own, these insects and diseases don’t move very far but when we move wood products we are helping spread these pests further and possibly into new areas,” Ogden said.
CFIA has been monitoring sites all across the country and Nova Scotia’s DNR is helping them with trapping surveys across Nova Scotia.
They baited traps hung in high traffic areas containing ash trees such as camping and picnic parks, truck stops, and industrial parks.