York Town News
Tiny predator beetle released in town to help the hemlocks
By Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK - They say good things come in small packages and the Maine Forest Service has announced that appears to be just the case with lady beetles, released last month in and around town to control an insect that is damaging the state's hemlock trees.
The Maine Forest Service announced last week that its efforts to control the spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid in York County continued with the release of 3,000 of the predatory lady beetles - technically known as Sasajiscymnus tsugae - last month.
The release site was in an area of recent expansion of the adelgid, according to the Maine Forest Service, and that area happens to be in the center of the town of York.
According to the forest service, this type of lady beetle does not congregate like the familiar multicolored Asian lady beetle, formally known as Harmonia axyridis.
And for local residents interested in helping with the effort to save local hemlock stands, the York Public Library is providing an opportunity this Saturday, May 5. At that time, the Maine Forest Service will host a training session for volunteers to "adopt" hemlock stands in and around town and survey the areas for adelgid infestation. The indoor session will be held at York Public Library and the outdoor session will be held at York Water District.
According to the Maine Forest Service, the beetles have been released in the hope that their "voracious appetite for HWA would help to slow that insect's spread. These tiny black beetles - about the size of the head of a pin - specialize in eating adelgids - one larva can eat as many as 500 adelgid eggs or 100 immature adelgids."
The York Public Library staff has dubbed the project, "Take a Stand for Hemlocks."
According to the Forest Service, hemlock woolly adelgid was first found in natural forest stands in the state back in 2003 on Kittery's Gerrish Island.
"Since then it has been detected scattered across about 6,500 acres in York County's five southernmost towns," Allison Kanoti of the service noted in an announcement of the upcoming volunteer event. "Native hemlocks have no resistance to this introduced insect, and extensive hemlock mortality and decline occur where the adelgid establishes."
Entomologists with the state forest service hope the lady beetles will reduce the adelgid population density and rate of spreading as, when food becomes scarce, it is expected the beetles will migrate to other areas in search of the adelgid.
Ways residents can help include not moving hemlock from infested areas to other areas, inspecting their own hemlocks for the presence of the white, woolly masses typical of the adelgid and reporting any suspected findings to the Maine Forest Service.
To register for the local volunteer effort, or to learn more about the project, call, Allison Kanoti at 287-3147 or e-mail allison.m.kanoti@maine.gov.
