The beetles are coming. The beetles are coming. And they're killing local trees.
Freeloading Longhorn Beetles (also known as "Starry Sky" or "Sky Beetles") are native to China, Korea and Japan, and are showing up in the Delaware Valley. Their meal of choice is the wooden crates that packages are shipped to the United States in.
“They’re wood burrowers," Stephen Sapp, a Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told NBC Philadelphia. "They lay eggs and seek shelter in the wood.”
Port Authority officers are inspecting all cargo coming in from China due to the recent influx. “We have a focused operation on the cargo coming from China,” Sapp says.
Any cargo tainted with the unwanted insects is re-exported and paid for by the same company who shipped them. If the wood doesn't measure up to IPPC standards, it is automatically returned to sender.
The beetles are often difficult to detect because of their size, ranging “anywhere from a few millimeters to inches but predominantly an inch to inch and a half,” Sapp added.
With this focused effort, border security hopes to stop an outbreak of the beetles that have already destroyed hundreds of trees in neighboring New Jersey and Ohio, according to NewsWorks. In New Jersey alone, the Asian Longhorn Beetle Eradication Program has removed 729 infested by the beetles and as a preventative measure, more than 21,000 high-risk trees.
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Also according to NewsWorks, 50 shipping containers have been rejected in the Port of Philadelphia in the past two months thanks to "Starry Sky."
