Once they are here though, invaders get moved around by people on boots, boats, and firewood. So clean your boots, wash your boats, and don’t move firewood.

http://www.dontmovefirewood.org

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.

There. Happy now?
Dad