sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
I don't even know what you are referencing.
I'd have to look it up.
Lantern fly hatch in central PA is back
- Thread starter krayfish2
- Start date
I'd have to look it up.
Roofin' Trouter
Active member
It was in the news last week or the week before. Its worth looking up if you would be concerned about 600 lb super pigs that tunnel under snow.
sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
The little bit I just read about them seems pretty serious. Destroying crops, plants etc is very serious for everyone.
Hurts the farmer, hurts food supplies and it hurts you .
My initial thought is, I wouldn't expect help from the government with super pigs.
They don't really do a damn thing for the lantern flies doing the same damage.
Hurts the farmer, hurts food supplies and it hurts you .
My initial thought is, I wouldn't expect help from the government with super pigs.
They don't really do a damn thing for the lantern flies doing the same damage.
Bamboozle
Well-known member
As I said in a previous post, my township in Berks County was the second township in the US to discover the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF) 24 hours after they were first detected. We were quarantined immediately and weren't even supposed to drive vehicles parked outdoors outside of the township.
I remember going to local township meetings loaded with "experts" who told us they were going to contain this thing because containment was the answer...
...obviously that didn't work. 😉
The good news for us is after initially having a few years of large numbers, they are about non existent in our area. I saw TWO all of last year and most folks I know say the same thing and that includes farmers and the owners of wineries & orchards.
So if the SLF is new to YOUR area, don't panic just yet, you may experience the same thing where you live in a few years.
I remember going to local township meetings loaded with "experts" who told us they were going to contain this thing because containment was the answer...
...obviously that didn't work. 😉
The good news for us is after initially having a few years of large numbers, they are about non existent in our area. I saw TWO all of last year and most folks I know say the same thing and that includes farmers and the owners of wineries & orchards.
So if the SLF is new to YOUR area, don't panic just yet, you may experience the same thing where you live in a few years.
sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
I hope you're right.
It's been 3 years running, countless hours trying to limit them, removal of about 20 trees, hours and hours on the phone and thousands of dollars trying to mitigate them to manageable levels.
I've given up and this year, they do what they do.
But 3 years now and they have been worse each following year.
In what area of PA do you live Sixfoot?
A few years ago SEPA was ground zero for SLFs at least in Chester County where I live. Their numbers declined for the past few years at my home, and last year I could count the number I've seen on one hand.
Bamboozle
Well-known member
FWIW - We were first infested in 2014...
Year one wasn't so bad, year two a little worse, year three worse still and year four maybe the same then things started tapering off to the point where I may see two or three on my property.
I saw similar in lower Berks, Chesco and northern Lancaster County with crazy numbers when they first were infested to a point where I hardly see them down there at all when fishing.
6xAdams(Jones)
Well-known member
From what I've heard, harvesting feral pigs one-at-a-time does nothing to eliminate them, and even detracts from removal when the pigs learn to go nocturnal, run away from stopping vehicles, etc. The only fix for the impacted farm depredation, is to bait the entire sounder into a funnel pen and full-on slaughter every last one. Everyone who follows that practice should invite everyone with a portable smoker to hog-boiling time. I expect that commodity traders wouldn't like the resulting drop on pork-belly prices.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Lol beware trichinella spiralis and taenia solium, don’t want to get that neuro cysticerosis with ferel hogs
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
A lot of times with invasive species their own success can be their undoing. When you are the new big bad bully on the block and no other creatures have evolved defenses against you or even had to deal with a predator anywhere near your size or ability to predate, you go BOOM.
This is why record/trophy sized species are found in their invasive range usually more often than their native range. This phenomenon is called “ growth plasticity”. The animal has nothing to keep it check in its new environment in which it didn’t evolve.
But all those prey items with no defenses tend to crash from unsustainable predation or trophic cascades ect. Then comes the BUST with invasive species.
There are examples of this process taking place in a decade or two to it taking around 100 years that I have seen. It could take hundreds or thousands of years because environmental changes or other introductions can change the situation completely.
You could be seeing this with SLF on a local level. Busts are generally drop offs in population beyond normal historical oscillations, they don’t have to be local extirpations or extinctions.
Examples include blue cats in the james that went from a few 100+ pound trophies swimming around to blue cats making up 75% of biomass in the james but topping out at 20” and around a pound or two because they ate the whole river. Lake trout went bust in many lakes out west when they eat all the cutties, invasive alweivies and pacifics almost took each other out in a massive crash and NY DEC moved heaven and earth to prevent them from going by by despite them suppressing native lake trout and Atlantics. We may be witnessing busts with michigan lake run rainbows and we might be seeing a bust in SW montana with brown trout.
Another overlooked principle is everyone thinks invasive species are superiorly equipped to survive in their home environments but native species have evolved to deal with catastrophic natural selection events and some only come every 500 to 1000+ years. Even in native species that have genetic introgression from bad genes( hatcheries), those bad genes can be spread around for years and years setting the entire population up to get taken out by a selection event that only happens every 5,10, 20 years ect. That point was made to me by a researcher in conservation genetics when I asked if maladaptive genes get selected out quickly.
Invasion biology is fascinating, SLF will probably drive a lot of innovation in responses to these invasions given the resources going into it.
This is why record/trophy sized species are found in their invasive range usually more often than their native range. This phenomenon is called “ growth plasticity”. The animal has nothing to keep it check in its new environment in which it didn’t evolve.
But all those prey items with no defenses tend to crash from unsustainable predation or trophic cascades ect. Then comes the BUST with invasive species.
There are examples of this process taking place in a decade or two to it taking around 100 years that I have seen. It could take hundreds or thousands of years because environmental changes or other introductions can change the situation completely.
You could be seeing this with SLF on a local level. Busts are generally drop offs in population beyond normal historical oscillations, they don’t have to be local extirpations or extinctions.
Examples include blue cats in the james that went from a few 100+ pound trophies swimming around to blue cats making up 75% of biomass in the james but topping out at 20” and around a pound or two because they ate the whole river. Lake trout went bust in many lakes out west when they eat all the cutties, invasive alweivies and pacifics almost took each other out in a massive crash and NY DEC moved heaven and earth to prevent them from going by by despite them suppressing native lake trout and Atlantics. We may be witnessing busts with michigan lake run rainbows and we might be seeing a bust in SW montana with brown trout.
Another overlooked principle is everyone thinks invasive species are superiorly equipped to survive in their home environments but native species have evolved to deal with catastrophic natural selection events and some only come every 500 to 1000+ years. Even in native species that have genetic introgression from bad genes( hatcheries), those bad genes can be spread around for years and years setting the entire population up to get taken out by a selection event that only happens every 5,10, 20 years ect. That point was made to me by a researcher in conservation genetics when I asked if maladaptive genes get selected out quickly.
Invasion biology is fascinating, SLF will probably drive a lot of innovation in responses to these invasions given the resources going into it.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Whats the recreational super pig version of this game? Hummer mounted 50 cal?
6xAdams(Jones)
Well-known member
Cook until beyond pink and you'll be okay. Bears are full of parasites and still get eaten - as long as they didn't get all their food from the local dump.
sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
Lancaster.
I have two properties.
One in the Northern part in the woods that has almost zero of these critters and one in the center of the county that is infested by what has to be a million of them.
We are nothing but farmland here both us and our neighbors.
A lot of trees have been lost.
Last year was the worst yet.
Bamboozle
Well-known member
Are you positive the three loss is due to SLF? We have a ton of dead trees in my area however the Emerald ash borer is the culprit.
Steeltrap
Active member
I knew a girl way back in high school.............
sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
Absolutely.
They became black and were coated in thousands of the flies, then began to mold and lose leaves.
A bunch of trees didn't get leaves last year.
Keep in mind this is the very tree they are most attracted to and the adjoining 3 farms to ours were experiencing the same thing. We all tried to let it go to see if the trees could be saved or if the flies would calm down, they didn't.
I spent a lot of money combating them to no avail. Last year, after much discussion with the other farms, we all removed a fair amount of these trees to mitigate the flies, remove the dead trees and also remove the foul odors(though the least of the problem).
Bamboozle
Well-known member
Tree of heaven I presume...?
As far as what I've experienced, I'm talking about my own property and maybe 500 acres of farms, orchards and vineyards all owned by friends nearby...
As far as what I've experienced, I'm talking about my own property and maybe 500 acres of farms, orchards and vineyards all owned by friends nearby...
pcray1231
Well-known member
It is.
I'll also note that native species go through boom/bust cycles as well though. Sometimes as a result of human induced changes (to habitat, or to predator or prey populations), but sometimes totally naturally as well. Before humans walked the earth animals went through boom bust cycles. Nature is not perfectly balanced, stable populations at all. There's a real danger of the scientific community taking on this whole concept of balanced, and it's all humans fault for screwing with it. We absolutely do screw with it, and change what goes boom and bust, and when, with our actions. But without us, boom and bust would happen as well, just differently.
