by Linda Saucerman

Sometime in the 1990s, a tree was cut in China, turned into solid wood packing material, and shipped to Brooklyn, New York.

This unremarkable event would have gone unnoticed were it not for a routine visit in 1996 by a New York City Parks inspector to Brooklyn’s McCarren Park, a four-block recreational area covered with softball diamonds, tennis courts, a defunct swimming pool, and a family picnic area overlooking midtown Manhattan’s skyline.

As he examined the trees, the Parks inspector noticed neatly drilled half-inch holes on several tree trunks. Pulling out his binoculars, he spotted an unfamiliar beetle, then two, then three, scaling up the tree. The shiny, black, one-and-a-half inch beetles had white bands and white dots on their backs and antennae.

He’d never seen anything like them before.

No one could have imagined the little black creature, later identified as the Asian longhorned beetle, would be responsible over the next decade for the death of some 7,000 trees in New York and Long Island, and generate a nearly half-billion-dollar federal campaign for its eradication.

On that lazy summer day in 1996, McCarren Park became the site of the beetle’s first infestation on American soil.

“No one even knew what it was,” says Fiona Watt, Chief of Forestry and Horticulture for the New York City Parks and Recreation Department. “The beetle was eventually sent to Hawaii for further examination. All of the literature was in Chinese at the time and it had to be translated. It was very difficult and it took about a year for us to catch up with the beetle.”

The Threat

Known in China as a pest of poplar trees, in New York the beetle developed a hearty appetite that went far beyond the borough’s modest poplar population.

In the 10 years since it was first identified, the beetle has eaten its way through parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island, where maple, willow, birch, elm, box elder, buckeye, and horse chestnut trees are abundant. New Jersey has also experienced infestations, as has Chicago.

The beetle’s lifecycle is unexceptional. After mating in the spring and summer, the female bores a hole in a tree trunk and deposits her eggs in the bark, covering them with a cement-like plug. The eggs become larvae and feed by eating their way deeper into the heart of the tree.

In the spring, the larvae pupate and chew their way out to the bark, leaving dime-sized holes in the trunk. The holes cause a disruption in sap flow and weakening of the trunk that ultimately leads to the death of the tree.

Unlike other beetles which take two to three years to mature, the Asian longhorned beetle can run through a complete life cycle in a single year.

So why is the Asian longhorned beetle such a big deal? After all, the 7,000 trees killed so far by the infestation represent only about one quarter of one percent of the city’s 5.2 million trees.

Last year alone, in the course of routine public space maintenance operations, New York City removed about 9,000 trees without anyone really noticing a major difference.

The danger lies in the fact that, if not controlled, the beetle is likely to kill half of New York City’s trees, reducing the city’s beauty, raising summer temperatures, and lowering air quality.

Because the beetle’s tunneling weakens the trees, they will have to be removed quickly and at great expense. And, should the beetle population spread, not only are urban trees at risk but also the forests of the Catskills, Adirondacks, and other wild portions of the eastern U.S. that are crucial to the integrity of our air, water, plants, and animals.

“The Asian longhorned beetle will, in the very near future, either break its quarantine around New York or be eradicated,” says Frank Lowenstein, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Forest Health Program.

“How successful we ultimately are in controlling this invasive species will show just how willing we are as a society to avert a disaster of catastrophic proportions.”

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Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Teun Van Den Dries (port); Photo © Kelley Scheer (Asian longhorned beetle); Photo © USDA (Tree)