Attack of a Crawling Menace: Gypsy Moth Caterpillars Have Wrought Staggering Damage

By Jan Hefler, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Jul. 1–Gypsy moth caterpillars have stripped bare an estimated 1.6 million acres of New Jersey and Pennsylvania trees in the last three months — the worst defoliation in 17 years.

As the destructive pests finish their annual feast and move to the next phase of their metamorphosis, officials in both states say recent airplane inspections have revealed staggering damage. The fuzzy caterpillars have turned brown an area the size of Delaware, leaving miles of forest exposed to increased fire risk and government officials arguing whether enough was done to prevent the devastation.

This year’s caterpillars were so voracious that they gobbled the needles off pine trees and the leaves from trees they usually find unappetizing.

Ed Lempicki, chief of the New Jersey Forest Service, said he was stunned by his air survey two weeks ago.

On a 15-acre expanse in Monmouth County, he said, the caterpillars stripped every leaf from 200-year-old oak, yellow poplar and sugar maples with two- to three-foot diameters.

“It looked like something out of a sci-fi magazine,” he said. “Caterpillars were crawling everywhere, all over the trees and buildings. They had completely inundated the area. Now, instead of these gorgeous trees, you have great big dead monstrosities that have to be taken down.”

Deciduous trees can survive leaflessness for a year, but many of the Monmouth County trees also were stripped last year. Conifers likely will die soon after they’re without needles, foresters say.

Joe Zoltowski, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Plant Pest and Disease Control in the Department of Agriculture, estimates that the caterpillars inflicted fatal damage on more than 17,000 acres of Garden State trees. Many other trees, he said, are so weakened they’ll likely die in a few years.

“I tell people, ‘Don’t get out the chain saws yet. Some of the trees will come back,’ ” said Zoltowski, who added that a clearer picture of tree kill would emerge in August.

Residents upset by the loss of trees and daily cleanups of the carpet of caterpillar droppings have been storming town meetings, blaming government officials for failing to do more aerial spraying.

State agencies in New Jersey are debating whether they should have used stronger poisons, and legislators are calling for federal funding.

Ray Reeve, who lives in Medford, Burlington County, said he lost four 35-foot hemlocks and had to power-wash his house to remove excrement stains.

“Their droppings are like peppercorns, and it was raining them,” he griped. “There were billions, and they covered my driveway. And when it rains, it gets slimy.”

Pennsylvania and New Jersey officials said a dry spring added to the cyclical surge in caterpillar population. A fungus that preys on the caterpillars and usually keeps the population in check fails to thrive without abundant rainfall.

Preliminary surveys, officials said, show that the caterpillars have defoliated 1 million to 1.3 million acres in Pennsylvania and 200,000 to 300,000 acres in New Jersey.

The worst damage in Pennsylvania is in Monroe County in the Poconos and Luzerne, Wayne and Pike Counties, said Terry Brady, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Other heavy damage, he said, centers on French Creek State Park, near the borders of Chester, Berks and Lancaster Counties.

Driving up I-81 near Wilkes Barre, he said, “you can see ridges denuded of leaves.”

“In some areas of the Poconos, the caterpillars are turning to evergreens. Once that’s denuded, they don’t come back,” Brady said.

Jersey’s worst damage was in Burlington and Ocean Counties, especially near Routes 70 and 72. In Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in eastern Burlington County, leafless 100-year-old oaks make it look like winter, despite temperatures in the 80s and 90s.

Damage was worse in 1990, when caterpillars ate through twice as many trees in New Jersey and four times as many in Pennsylvania.

This year, the caterpillars have been devouring leaves since April. In recent days, most have morphed into pupae, and they will emerge as moths in a few weeks. They won’t start trouble again until next spring, when the millions of eggs that the moths lay hatch and turn into caterpillars.

Homeowner Rick Datres said the caterpillar bombardment stained his Medford house, deck and driveway and left his family unable to enjoy their yard.

“We could hear them munching all day long,” he said, adding that caterpillars stripped every leaf from more than one hundred 60- to 80-foot oaks — the worst infestation he’s seen in his 28 years living there.

Some do-it-yourselfers tried, mostly in vain, to stop the caterpillars by wrapping tree trunks in double-sided tape, emptying tape shelves at department and hardware stores, residents said.

The heavy damage sent many residents complaining to Medford Township officials, who scaled back on anti-caterpillar spraying this year to save money. Other townships in heavily damaged areas also reduced or skipped spraying.

Jersey’s Agriculture Department had recommended that pesticide be sprayed on 98,000 acres, based on last year’s caterpillar population, but only 62,500 acres were treated.

Both states spray a microorganism called Bacillus thuringiensis, which produces caterpillar toxins. Some New Jersey local officials complain that the state should have used stronger poison.

Maryland and West Virginia permit a pesticide called Dimilin, officials said, which they say kills caterpillars more effectively.

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Karen Hershey said the department selects pesticides cautiously and found that Dimilin affects crustaceans and other species.

She said DEP is considering its options for next year.

Contact staff writer Jan Hefler at 856-779-3224 or jhefler@phillynews.com.

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