While driving home today from a Georgia urban forestry information update session, I heard a radio blurb about how Mexican drug cartel violence has spilled over into Texas, including murder and beheading. Over 60,000 illegal aliens have been picked up in an Arizona sector of the Mexican border in the last four months alone. National security pundits have raved about the need for increased patrols and other border-hardening measures ever since 9/11.
Just hours before this news, I heard a Georgia Forestry Commission forest health specialist, Chip Bates, preach doom and gloom about how other illegals easily penetrate our porous borders. “It’s only going to get worse,” said he. These alien invaders included such pesky perps as laurel wilt disease, phytoplasma disease of Sabal palm, and light brown apple moth. Bugs and rots from far away countries hitch rides inside the millions of cargo containers that enter our ports every year. As ports and foreign imports expand, so do our chances of more invaders ravaging our fair land.
Why care about a few nondescript critters? Consider that, according to USDA statistics, in 2008 , farm receipts for crops was almost $179 billion. We are talking about our national food source here. Many of these non-native insects and diseases have no known natural predators or control agents outside their homelands. A particularly nasty case in point is the so-called light brown apple moth (LBAM), Epiphyas postvittan, which showed up in California in 2007. Mr Bates described this little leaf roller as the “Eats anything it lands on” moth. Here’s how the USDA characterized its concern for ag interests in California: “LBAM is of particular concern because it can damage a wide range of crops and other plants including California’s prized cypress as well as redwoods, oaks and many other varieties commonly found in California’s urban and suburban landscaping, public parks and natural environment. The list of agricultural crops that could be damaged by this pest includes grapes, citrus, stone fruit (peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, apricots) and many others. The complete “host list” contains well over 1,000 plant species and more than 250 fruits and vegetables.” This pest quickly spread to a dozen counties, thanks in part to California citizens complaining of aerial control spraying. I guess they think fresh food just comes from Safeway …
The lessons learned from forest losses due to Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, and gypsy moth included establishing quarantine and testing methods, yet emerald ash borer, woolly adeldgid, and Asian longhorned beetle are tearing up modern-day timberland and suburbs alike. Sudden oak death is moving toward the southeast (after “import” into California) while laurel wilt disease is here. And I haven’t even touched on the exotic weed plants and animals that are taking over our natural areas.
Securing our borders against biological agents is just as much a matter of national security as keeping the terrorists out. While I don’t normally cogitate on conspiracy theories, consider this: Could non-native pests be deliberately introduced so as to reduce our agricultural capacity, damage certain commodity markets, or as good old fashioned corporate sabotage? Is it all just “Ooops, this little creepy-crawler came in on a wood pallet from China”? What if citrus canker was brought to Florida so as to increase foreign market share? A “dirty bomb” slipping in and going off in a major population center would be horrific, but would it be any more so than if some critter was sent here to devour our corn crop over the next ten years? We may end up begging for some food along with that barrel of oil.
Enjoyable article. A couple corrections on the information:
1. The Light brown Apple Moth is not a threat to agriculture or forests or home gardens in California or the United States.
It has never done any significant damage in any country on this earth where it has lived in recorded history. Thousands of insects can land on as many plants as LBAM – that doesn’t make them a threat to the plant. You drive by thousands of homes every day – that doesn’t mean you are a threat to rob them. Thousands of insects are higher up on the legitimate threat list than LBAM and we live with those very comfortably, thank you. You and I “Could” also start destroying every plant and tree in California, but we don’t.
2. LBAM did not arrive in California in 2007.
Its DNA was tested in 2007. If you test a dinosaur bone in 2007, does that mean that dinosaurs arrived in 2007? It was noticed by a UC Berkeley professor /entomologist in his back yard in 2006. He, himself, said that the moths had probably been here for many years prior to one landing in his back yard black light. A professor at UC Davis who is the expert on invasive biology, and who actually studies patterns of insect movement, rather than making unsubstantiated statements, etc., said the moth has been here at least 30-50 years.
3. No damage from this moth has been seen or documented ever by anyone in California or the United States. The California Department of Agriculture (CDFA), the USDA, farmers, no one has demonstration of damage. Even two superior courts in California had findings that there was no damage from LBAM.
4. LBAM has been here a long time. It is simply a member of the food chain now being eaten by so many other insects (spiders, birds, bats, etc) that we can’t even find one meal of a plant or tree or crop that it has eaten in the many decades that it has been here. It has simply fallen in line with the other 300 moths that were already here of its same type.
5. Contact a grape grower or apple orchard farmer or a forest ranger or home gardener in New Zealand or Europe or Hawaii where LBAM also lives. You won’t be able to find a single one who has a problem with LBAM (unless they were married to one).
WRAP UP:
So why all the screaming by the USDA and CDFA and those echoing their words and fears that LBAM is such a great pest and huge threat to our country?
Consider this: The CDFA will be able to access $2,500,000,000 over twenty five years if they can initiate and maintain a bogus eradication program for LBAM, and that is the average length of time of their eradication programs. Even if they can only pull it off for five years, they will get $500 million dollars of emergency tax payer funds. Can you imagine that unnecessary waste in our current economy? That is a lot of new trucks and a lot of job promotion for these guys and a lot of chemical contracts for their insider buddies. For one single insect, they will be able to increase their entire yearly budget by 40%. I won’t say why they have pretended that LBAM is such a threat, but you take a guess.
Thanks for your comments, Ben. Your guess about fiefdom-building as motivation for fear-mongering is valid and likely. Maybe these departments are using the same funding tactics as many enviro-NGOs: Hysterics raise money.