In this Washinton Post article, Lou Meyer from Davey's Mid-Atlantic region talks about the surge of spotted lanternflies in Washington D.C. and how you can stop it.
Lou Meyer, an arborist for The Davey Tree Expert Company, said scraping egg masses off surfaces "isn't doing a whole lot." He compared it to "bailing out a sinking ship, one thimble at a time." To get rid of spotted lanternflies, he said people should have "no problem walloping these things. Hopefully, that sends a message to their friends," he joked.
There is no permanent solution to spotted lanternflies yet, but experts said they expect them to gradually disappear over time, much like spongy moths, formally known as gypsy moths, which were once troublesome for the D.C. region a decade ago.
Though lanternflies have thrived in large part because they lack natural predators in North America, amateur birders and professional biologists have increasingly noticed that native birds are learning to munch on the bugs. Now entomologists and ornithologists want to figure out how to encourage more birds to eat more of them.
To continue reading Lou's advice, click here.
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