One big black bug down. One little green bug to go.
Eight years after the Asian longhorned beetle first was spotted munching on the majestic trees of the North Side, city, state and federal officials declared victory Wednesday in their $75 million fight against the invasive pest.
The celebration was muted, though, by the discovery last month in Kane County of the emerald ash borer, another imported insect that could prove to be even more destructive.
Both bugs are fond of trees that line city streets and grow thick in the hardwood forests of the Midwest. Unlike native pests, they have few enemies and easily devour trees that haven’t developed defenses against the exotic invaders.
“We’ve got some reasons to be happy and relieved, but we can’t relax,” said Joe McCarthy, senior forester in the Chicago Bureau of Forestry and manager of the city’s efforts to stop the Asian longhorned beetle.
For another year or so, workers still will crawl around the city’s leafy canopy of maples, willows and box elders, searching for the distinctive black bugs with white spots and long antennae. Some of the oldest and biggest trees in a handful of neighborhoods also will continue to get doses of a potent insecticide.
But after three years without sighting a longhorned beetle, authorities decided to lift the last quarantine that led to the destruction of 1,500 infested trees. It applied to an area around Oz Park where three infested trees were found in 2003. Trees and firewood now can be safely moved in and out of the neighborhood without fear that the beetles will spread.
Officials lifted a similar quarantine last year in Ravenswood, where the beetle is thought to have arrived years ago in wood pallets carrying Chinese-made goods to a hardware importer.
The emerald ash borer first was identified four years ago in suburban Detroit. It is responsible for the destruction of 15 million ash trees in five states and parts of Canada.
