Perhaps you remember, in the summer of 2011, the purple kite-like contraptions that you'd see hanging from trees around here. They were traps for the emerald ash borer, a destructive insect that back then was moving east across Pennsylvania. The sticky traps, which were purple because the insect likes the color, were installed to enable wildlife officials to keep track of its spread.
Just this week I read an update in the "Wall Street Journal" on the ash borer. The creature has been found in 21 states since it was first detected near Detroit in 2002. It is believed to have entered the country from its native China by means of packing materials. It has infested tens of millions of ash trees.
Scientists have learned that red-bellied woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches and parasitic wasps can help slow the pests' devastation, although some predict that dead ash trees will be an all-too-common sight throughout the eastern United States over the next few decades.
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