It's been a few months since we've seen the bugs pestering us. Yes, spotted lanternflies are both annoying and destructive.
It's winter. The perfect time to squash spotted lanternfly eggs before they hatch.
People in Burlington County signed up, picked up sticks and got to scraping egg sacs off trees.
The egg sacs look like mud that's been dabbed on a tree – up to 2 inches long.
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The spotted lanternfly has been an annual summer and fall annoyance in our region since 2014.
“Spotted lanternflies are invasive and they do threaten some of our native trees and some of the agriculture here in New Jersey,” Burlington County park naturalist Gina DiMaio said.
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We couldn’t contain the colorful bugs, so people were urged to squash them instead.
However, some scraping done in the dead of winter can help prevent all that squashing come summer.
So, a group of volunteers picked up painter poles with scrapers on the ends and looked up at the branches above. On a recent February day they hit up Pennington Park in Delanco.
“I'm just scraping everything that looks like it might possibly be one of those egg cases,” Westampton's Audrey Dorofy said.
It might seem like a small effort, but every egg destroyed counts to keeping spotted lanternflies at bay. It’s "oddly satisfying" for the volunteers.
“I feel good about, you know, knowing what to do,” Mt. Laurel's Carolyn Scheffer said.
You can join the effort to scrape away the spotted lanternfly eggs as Burlington County is hosting one last session on Feb. 28. Click here to register.
