Spongy moth treatment for Cruso postponed
The spongy moth has the potential to devastate Western North Carolina's forests.
Micah McClure composition
After residents voiced concerns during a March 21 meeting over a North Carolina Department of Agriculture initiative to treat an invasive pest that has infiltrated Haywood County’s Cruso community, the NCDA announced earlier today that the treatment would be postponed for at least the rest of the year.
Since 2019, NCDA monitoring efforts — through traps hung from trees — have continued to show larger and larger numbers of the invasive spongy moth lymantria dispar, formerly known as the gypsy moth, in the Cruso area.
The treatment, with a pheromone excreted by female moths, is non-toxic and has shown no negative effects on people, pets, produce or fish, but some in attendance tried to distort material data safety sheets and product warnings to infer that it was dangerous.
In the end, NCDA Plant Pest Administrator Joy Goforth said that some residents had complained about a lack of communication that left them with no say in the process.
“We still believe treatment is the best thing to do, however we recognize that communication could have been improved,” Goforth told The Smoky Mountain News on March 30.
Goforth said the NCDA would continue to trap spongy moths in the area and monitor populations, and will reevaluate the data in preparation for possible treatment next year.
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A public meeting that was to be scheduled in advance of the late-June spray treatment will be canceled; however, mailers will be sent to people in the proposed treatment block if and when the spraying is proposed again.
The spongy moth was imported to the northeastern United States in the 1860s, and has since spread across the region, gobbling up millions of acres of forest each year. The caterpillars that emerge from the spongy egg mass can eat a square foot of greenery per day, and they especially enjoy oak trees.
“It’s a defoliator and left untreated it completely devastates forests,” Goforth said. “Years of deforestation cause mortality and impact our multi billion-dollar forestry and tourism industries.”
Dead trees affect water quality and contribute to erosion, but the moth could also affect North Carolina’s Christmas tree industry. Although the moths don’t necessarily love to eat them, they can hitch a ride on them or leave egg sacs behind as the trees are exported beyond the state’s borders.
Transport restrictions on Christmas trees could cripple the industry; more than 20% of Christmas trees in the United States come from North Carolina, including a 78-footer that traveled to the White House last year. Currituck County and parts of Dare county are currently subject to quarrantine.
If the spongy moth infestation grows, there are myriad other problems that could come with them.
“They’re also problematic for homeowners. There are health concerns. The list is relatively endless as far as problems that will happen,” Goforth said. “Establishment also contributes to a change in forest ecology, which has impacts on wildlife and hunting. The ripple effect of that impacts citizens, agriculture and wildlife as well.”
Read the full NCDA press release by visiting ncagr.gov/paffairs/release/2023/3-23Crusotrappingupdate.htm.
