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Allemaengel t1_jcpfq02 wrote

I work in forestry virtually at the original epicenter of SLF and they're virtually not seen anymore there. I've observed a huge number of native predators going after this virtually defenseless protein packs.

And their damage was very limited even at the height of their boom.

Reality is that the quarantine won't really do much just like the Emerald Ash Borer one didn't. In the end predators will emerge in the new areas SLF infests and control the numbers.

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zorionek0 t1_jcpp8i5 wrote

Life finds a way! That’s really reassuring

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DoctorSteve t1_jcqb0qf wrote

I mean "life finds a way", but this is still upsetting and changing the ecosystem. Predators gaining new food sources isn't things returning to normal.

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Allemaengel t1_jcqrsdk wrote

But it really hasn't where I am and I work in the area where it's been the longest. They're almost non-existent now and except for a few non-native Tree of Heaven and non-native types of cultivated grapevine, there hasn't been much plant mortality in the couple years that SLF boomed before predators figured them out.

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DoctorSteve t1_jcqsm85 wrote

The increase in food for insect predators will lead to an at least short-lived insect predator boom. I'm saying that is disruptive. It's not a rebalancing.

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reverendsteveii t1_jcr6y49 wrote

It's things returning to a different, new normal the way they have in response to pressure since the beginning of time. Our job was never to get things back to the way they were, it was to ease the transition.

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DoctorSteve t1_jcrigs3 wrote

I disagree with "that's how it's been since the beginning of time".

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reverendsteveii t1_jcro4ul wrote

You can disagree but unless you can produce for me a dinosaur you're wrong

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DoctorSteve t1_jcrt849 wrote

Do you think the extinction of the dinosaurs was from natural causes?

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Collegenoob t1_jcqps1v wrote

Yep. Terrible for 2 years. And on year 3 wasps, birds, and spiders were DEVOURING these things.

I almost miss killing 30+ per walk now lol

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Ghstfce t1_jctaa46 wrote

My daughter and I really bonded over sitting out front with my Bug-A-Salt gun and a box of kosher salt picking these little bastards off in the one tree they swarmed when it first started. I'll miss that. A lot of joy was had.

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lyncati t1_jcqnufw wrote

Isn't that part of the point, to try to control things until predators figure out if it's safe to eat? That's what helps mitigate ecological damage.

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Allemaengel t1_jcqpvuw wrote

It made little difference where I work. The predators had it figured out less than two years after SLF arrived. The quarantine has little to do with it as people either are unaware or unwilling to follow it and are moving the creature around at will.

Nature represents the final determiner and sometimes moves very fast in doing so.

The state has worried so much about SLF and yet didn't seem nearly as concerned about EAB which has cost an inordinate amount of money and put the electrical grid and people's physical safety at fat greater risk.

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UnaffiliatedOpinion t1_jcqzx9i wrote

I'm admittedly pretty ignorant to what the state has done as a matter of policy against either invasive species (other than that I'm vaguely aware that firewood is not supposed to be transported between parks and such).

How much is being driven by government action, vs word-of-mouth? I don't imagine most people would see EAB on a daily basis - unless you're closely inspecting trees, would we be living ignorant to the infestation around us? Meanwhile with the lanternflies, there are so many that it feels like you're experiencing a biblical plague, it makes sense that everyone is stomping them and talking about stomping them.

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Allemaengel t1_jcr0qdn wrote

The EAB lives nearly all its life cycle out of sight under the bark so out of sight, out of mind unlike the flashy SLF and all of its instar phases. Human beings and their governments tend to react to that which they see whether or not it merits it

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CouldBeBetterForever t1_jcryd3k wrote

This is anecdotal, of course, but I saw a lot of them in Lancaster County 2-3 years ago. They were all over my property in the summer of 2020 and 2021. This past summer I saw substantially fewer. This probably explains it.

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JennItalia269 t1_jcrxo3l wrote

I’m in MontCo and three years ago I’d see dozens a day. Think I saw 1-3 total last year.

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ggoptimus t1_jcrsmw7 wrote

We also saw their numbers diminish in our area. Other animals have definitely figured out they are food.

Now if only there was a predator for the lesser celandine plant taking over Pennsylvania.

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Allemaengel t1_jcrukc8 wrote

That's a problem along the creeks where I work too. The floods are seeming to help spread it.

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Blexcr0id t1_jct2tqi wrote

I think their populations are cyclical and we will see years with more and years with less. Pennsylvania's fruit agriculture industry is still figuring out the impacts of the SLF spread.

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