The State of Hawaii's Department of Agriculture and the Kauai Invasive Species Committee have joined forces this month in an island-wide survey of every garden store, plant nursery and refuse station on the island of Kauai in an effort to monitor the arrival (or lack of) foreign insect species.
The current survey across the island involving these two organizations are specifically searching for evidence of the fire ant and the stinging nettle caterpillar. The Department of Agriculture and the Kauai Invasive Species Committtee will be using natural chemical-based traps as well as manually searching plants and soil.
Fire ants first arrived on the island of Kauai eight years ago via a shipment of landscaping plants from another island. Their presence has been monitored since then. A common fear is that they will end up in nurseries and garden stores, thereby spreading rapidly across the island. Thankfully, in the past, these surveys have not found any signs of the fire ants at any of the nurseries.
Stinging nettle caterpillars, meanwhile, have not been found on Kauai. However, the State of Hawaii government is worried that they could end up on the island sooner or later; the stinging nettle caterpillar has already arrived in Hawaii six years ago and have recently been found on Oahu earlier this year.
No one knows exactly how these two invasive, foreign insect pest species arrived in the island state of Hawaii. However, it is crucial that people be vigilant about invasive species. As with any ecosystem on an island, Hawaii's environment is very fragile and once an invasive species arrives, it is nearly impossible to eradicate.
If you see either fire ants or stinging nettle caterpillars, please contact either the Hawaii Department of Agriculture or the Kauai Invasive Species Committee by calling the Hawaii Pest Hotline at (808) 643-PEST.
The current survey across the island involving these two organizations are specifically searching for evidence of the fire ant and the stinging nettle caterpillar. The Department of Agriculture and the Kauai Invasive Species Committtee will be using natural chemical-based traps as well as manually searching plants and soil.
Fire ants first arrived on the island of Kauai eight years ago via a shipment of landscaping plants from another island. Their presence has been monitored since then. A common fear is that they will end up in nurseries and garden stores, thereby spreading rapidly across the island. Thankfully, in the past, these surveys have not found any signs of the fire ants at any of the nurseries.
Stinging nettle caterpillars, meanwhile, have not been found on Kauai. However, the State of Hawaii government is worried that they could end up on the island sooner or later; the stinging nettle caterpillar has already arrived in Hawaii six years ago and have recently been found on Oahu earlier this year.
No one knows exactly how these two invasive, foreign insect pest species arrived in the island state of Hawaii. However, it is crucial that people be vigilant about invasive species. As with any ecosystem on an island, Hawaii's environment is very fragile and once an invasive species arrives, it is nearly impossible to eradicate.
If you see either fire ants or stinging nettle caterpillars, please contact either the Hawaii Department of Agriculture or the Kauai Invasive Species Committee by calling the Hawaii Pest Hotline at (808) 643-PEST.
Comments
Stephen L. Tvedten
(Guest)
(Guest)
11/05/2007
You can repel fire ants with talcum powder and kill them with aspartame - See How to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth......
http://www.thebestcontrol2.com
Stephen L. Tvedten
(Guest)
(Guest)
11/05/2007
You can repel fire ants with talcum powder and kill them with aspartame - See How to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth......
There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species - already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to "man's footprint". But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive and unnecessary pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.
We are losing the war against t
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