Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25234
IN FRONT:: Yes, they get paid to do this and, no, there's no sign of Osama bin Laden . These feder- al agents-the ones hanging from trees in New York's Central Park-are searching for a much smaller but nonetheless aggressive terrorist: the Asian Longhorned Beetle. Nearly 3,000 New York trees have died at its teeth to date and the fight continues. The problem began in China, where an increase in logging of the Chinese Elm caused an Asian Longhorn population explosion. In the mid-1990s, a Chinese container ship arrived the port of New York. In its cargo hold sat hundreds of wooden pallets bearing everything from electronics to textiles. Scientists think that a pallet carrying beetle larvae ended up in a Brooklyn shipping yard , and it was there the beetles made their illegal entry onto US shores. The female beetle, 1.5 inches long, reproduces by planting tiny larvae deep underneath tree bark. Upon maturing, baby beetles burrow to the surface, plowing through crucial water and nutrient channels. Left behind are perfectly round holes big enough to hold a crayon. The beetle will ultimately kill a tree by leaving it infected and starving. Raid and Black Flag are useless against this beetle. And since the Asian Longhorn is an immigrant, it has no natural predators in the US. The only way to fight this NYC tree-o-cide is to visually inspect each and every tree and destroy those contaminated. The US Department of Agriculture, worried that the beetle threatens not only New York City's parks, but also suburbs, national forests, and by extension , industries like maple syrup, logging and home building, hired a private tree service to climb and inspect New York's trees. Three million dollars and an investigation later the government determined its contractor wasn't doing the job right. Thousands of supposedly "inspected" trees had not been, and many were contaminated. The US Forest Service called its elite smokejumping unit to the rescue. Accustomed to parachuting into Montana wildfires, this time the smokejumpers flew into LaGuardia and were assigned tree-climbing duty in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Tree climbing is a key skill learned in the wildlife firefighting world. Like rock climb- ing, proficiency in tree climbing requires knowledge of knots, familiarity with climbing equipment, such as har- nesses, ropes, and carabiners and comfort at altitude. How does tree climbing compare to rock climbing? As smokejumper Simon Friedman says, " Down climbing is a lot easier on a tree, and up climbing is a lot easier on a rock." What does it feel like to save trees from the beetle? According to Simon, "It's exciting because it's what you've been trained for. But in some ways, when you find a beetle, it's like finding a death warrant for the tree. Whether you've found the bug on a 20-year-old maple or happy 200-year-old elm-it's sad." - Sandy Barnes