Last week, a UPS truck rolled up to an office of the Division of Forests and Lands. Its cargo? A cooler full of Asian wasps from a lab in Michigan.
Molly Heuss, who works on the state’s emerald ash borer program, cuts off the packing tape that holds the cooler shut to check out its contents.
“It says we’ve got 6,850 female Tetrastichus planipennisi,” she says.
New Hampshire is home to roughly 25 million ash trees. Two years ago, we learned the state is also home to a devastating invasive beetle – the emerald ash borer – which can completely destroy infested stands of ash trees in as little as six years.
Now state foresters are hoping that bringing the pest’s natural enemies over from Asia can save the Granite State’s ash trees.