I recall one summer when I was a boy in the 1960’s where we had a tent caterpillar outbreak in our town. Global Warming wasn’t on anybody’s mind then. This story is from the Independent in the UK.
Caterpillar plague on Isle of Wight was caused by climate change, says expert
By Ben Mitchell
Saturday, 15 May 2010 Global warming was blamed yesterday for an increase in caterpillar infestations which can cause severe allergic reactions.
In the latest outbreak, residents of a street in Newport, Isle of Wight, were forced to stay indoors or wear protective body-suits and face-masks to avoid coming into contact with tiny hairs shed by the brown-tail moth caterpillars. The insects have set up home in an isolated and overgrown plot next to gardens in the street. Steve Gardner, who has been dealing with the infestation in West Street, said: “In general, these insects are getting worse in this country because the climate is changing and the summers are getting warmer.
Normally, these insects settle in fields where they do not do anyone any harm but if they are close to houses they travel from garden to garden causing problems. As the caterpillar grows it sheds its skin and the tiny hairs float in the air and can cause a severe skin reaction.”
The insect, which has a dotted white line down each side and two very distinctive red dots on the back of its tail, emerges from its nest as the weather gets warmer in May and June.
The easiest time to get rid of them is during winter when their tent-like nests are visible. Mr Gardner said he would return in the autumn to remove the nests. Residents have been told to use calamine lotion or contact a doctor that if a rash develops.
Well, I don’t know where Mr Gardner lives, but either it isn’t the Isle of Wight, or he’s oblivious to his surroundings. I do live there (I even had a house in West Street at one time) and we have not only had two lousy summers, but this winter has been the coldest for a generation, and it hasn’t warmed up properly even yet. We had a frost three nights ago and the mean temperature for this month is lower than the mean for the whole of April. Figures from the local weather station in Newport here:
http://www.isleofwightweather.co.uk/2010_data.htm
“Every summer we can rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight
if it’s still there
We shall stomp and spray
Caterpillars on your knees
Man this is depraved”
Sung to the tune of “When I’m 64” with abject apologies to The Beatles.
Maybe I’m thick, but why don’t they clear that patch out and kill the caterpillars? Heck, you could pay the local children a penny a ‘pillar and then have a big smash-fest.
We pay our kids a dime per Japanese beetle here in the summertime. And nothing seems to kill those things except smashing them. Do you think bt would work on them?
Queen1
re: Japanese Beetle control,
I am attacking that problem from two fronts.
I attack the grubs by inoculating my lawn with Bacillus popilliae aka Milky spore disease.
This appears to have reduced the number of adult beetles last year as I did the application in 2008 because of what we saw the first summer at our new home.
I do hand removal several times a day and feed the bugs to the chickens. I can assure you the chickens do in fact kill them, several hundred beetles survive about 10 seconds when dumped in front of a dozen or so growing protein seeking chickens.
If I didn’t have a vegetable garden I would let the chickens just have free range and not have to do the hand removal. However with chickens anything red like berries or tomatoes are in severe peril. Then there is the constant scratching.
A dime a beetle would bankrupt us in short order.
North of 43 and south of 44 says:
May 15, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Queen1
re: Japanese Beetle control,
…..If I didn’t have a vegetable garden I would let the chickens just have free range and not have to do the hand removal. However with chickens anything red like berries or tomatoes are in severe peril. Then there is the constant scratching.
______________________________________________________________________
Try some guinea hens
http://purple-eggplant.com/zc/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_11
My husband calls them mobile football helmets. I have seen guineas form up in a row and march across a pasture, like soldiers on patrol. They are loud and will yell if anything strange comes onto the farm. They are pretty dumb and they wander but make up for it by being great insectivores (and good eating related to pheasant)
“Normally, these insects settle in fields where they do not do anyone any harm but if they are close to houses they travel from garden to garden causing problems.”
Translation:
“We say that Global Warming is to blame for these caterpillars “choosing” to settle near houses, instead of normally settling in fields, as they did before warming. We really have no idea how the two can be linked – if ever, but we want our slice of the CAGW research slush fund. Can we have it now?”
For the folks with Japanese beetle problems, there is an effective solution.
The beetle traps use a pheromone [sex lure] that attracts the beetles [both male and female] into a bag.
When these first came on the market, my family in Ohio all chattered excitedly about the bags being entirely filled with Japanese beetles in short order. And since the lure is only a trace pheromone and a floral scent attractant – no poisons – the beetles can be fed to chickens.
They really work. But they also attract the beetles from far and wide into your yard. More than one trap is necessary to keep up with the numbers of beetles captured. But think of the satisfaction!
Do a search for “Japanese beetle traps” and you’ll find them.
Smokey –
The milky spore is a very good product for long-term impact on Japanese beetles, as mentioned. They attack the grub stage in the soil and the spores multiply when they attack a grub, thereby increasing the population of protective spores in the soil.
The Japanese beetle traps with the pheromones are an outstanding product, that works against the adult stage. They do attract and catch lots of Japanese beetles. As such, they will come in from nearby areas. So, the running joke is – the best way to use the traps is to give them to your neighbors to put up in their yards instead of your own.
Stephen Brown says:
I’m in Selsey, West Sussex… This morning (12 May 2010) we had a very hard frost, sufficiently cold to precipitate out the waxes in the ultra-poor but very expensive diesel sold by our local fuel stations.
I suggest that Stephen Brown should choose somewhere else to buy his diesel.
The frost on 12 May in southern England was trivial compared with the ones that the area experienced through the last winter. Never once did the diesel in my cars freeze up, despite some nights getting as cold as -10C.
Smokey,
I have enough of the beetles already and I don’t want to draw any additional ones to the lot.
The traps are extremely good at catching them however in the process there are large numbers that also wind up outside the traps and end up producing next years grub crop.
I vote for putting the traps on the neighbor propertys far from their borders with you.
Gail,
I know about the guineahens, the noise that a flock of them can make would likely disturb the neighbors.
Last year I sent my lovely but noisy Roo to freezer camp so as to not get complaints from the neighbors. If I had a larger lot I’d have some guineahens and maybe a Roo.
The easiest time to get rid of them is during winter when their tent-like nests are visible. Mr Gardner said he would return in the autumn to remove the nests.
No, the easiest time to get rid of them is *now*. Roll a wide strip of burlap around the trunk, wrap a wire around it in the center, then fold the upper half of the burlap over the wire to make a loose, inverted U. The caterpillars fall out of the trees a lot when they’re feeding, then climb the trunk to get back to the chow line — they’ll get trapped in the inverted U. Smack the burlap a couple of times during the day to crush the caterpillars, and after a week, they’ll be down to manageable numbers.
Removing the nests in autumn won’t do anything except remove the nests. The caterpillars don’t overwinter in them — they attach themselves to any handy surface and spin individual cocoons.
Why did I have to be away this weekend!!! I am a resident (20+ years) of West Street in Newport. I’m down the other end of the road (high teens number of houses away) and the first I heard of it was the wonderful headline in our local paper “Our caterpillar hell” The caterpillars are growing on a small bramble patch, no bigger than a couple of car park spaces, where the gardens on West street back onto the ones from New street.
The Isle of Wight has a pretty balmy climate, but last winter was the roughest for many years, and lst summer was definitely the “barbecue summer” forecast by the met office. Unless these caterpillars, which we used to play with when I was a kid, particularly like cold wet summers and very cold snowy winters, follower by cold spring, then I fail to see how “global warming” could even occur to anyone.
Anyway, apart from amusing my emigrant (to mainland England) children with the story, I missed the online excitement entirely. NO all I’ve got look forward to is my holiday in Iceland, booked about a week before Eyakatlajokull kicked off! Caterpillars and eruptions, living dangerously, or what?
Damn, it was definitely NOT the barbecue summer.