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No gypsy moth eradication treatments in Washington in 2008

OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) announced today that no eradication treatment of the destructive gypsy moth will take place this year, only the second time in the past decade that no eradication treatment is being proposed.

After analyzing the results of last summer’s trapping and follow-up inspections of sites where more than one gypsy moth was trapped, state agriculture officials have concluded that no reproducing gypsy moth populations currently exist.

WSDA caught 24 moths at 10 sites last summer. Multiple catches occurred at sites in Wauna in Pierce County, Birch Bay in Whatcom County, and Kent in King County.

“The physical evidence at the sites was not strong enough for proposing an eradication treatment,” said Dr. Jim Marra, managing entomologist for WSDA.

The last year no treatment occurred in Washington was in 2003. During the last 10 years WSDA has conducted 21 eradication treatments, including a 25-acre site in Kent last year.

WSDA inspectors will place more than 25,000 small cardboard traps in the field next summer looking for new introductions of the pest. Wauna, Birch Bay, and Kent will be heavily trapped.

Washington has never had a permanent population of gypsy moth, but the moth causes severe environmental damage in the East Coast and upper Midwest.
 

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