Officials from the Minnesota agriculture department announced on Friday, Oct. 23, that emerald ash borers, a highly destructive species of beetles, have been detected in the forests of Duluth for the first time.
Agriculture experts found larval forms of the insects in four of the 35 individual ash trees in Park Point.
It is now believed that emerald ash borers, which have already devastated forests in Superior, Wisconsin in the past two years, are now poised to threaten millions of acres of Minnesota's ash and boulevard trees.
"Park Point isn't very far across the bay from Superior... one of them could have easily flown across there," Kelly Fleissner, maintenance manager of Duluth City, said.
The discovery of the emerald ash borers in Duluth forests was part of a three-year investigation that identified various methods of detecting the invasive insects. One of the methods used by the researchers involved removing the branches from several ash trees in order to peel the bark back and look for evidence of the insects' presence.
Entomologist Mark Abrahamson from the agriculture department of Minnesota explained that they have focused their search for emerald ash borers in the area since they found beetle specimens across the state's border with Wisconsin in August 2013.
Now that they have discovered the location of the insects, Abrahamson said they can now coordinate with their partners in Duluth City and St. Louis County as well as with local business and residents to help stop the spread of the emerald ash borers in Minnesota's northern regions.
Researchers have already sent specimens of the invasive beetles to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to confirm their discovery. Results will be made available within the next few days.
Agriculture inspectors in the state have placed an emergency quarantine in the area in order to limit the transportation of individual trees, limbs, debris, or hardwood firewood obtained from ash trees from affected sections of Park Point.
Permanent quarantines were established in 11 of Minnesota's southern counties following the discovery of emerald ash borers in these areas in 2009.
Larvae of these beetles are known to kill ash trees by burrowing deep within their barks and feeding on the trees' section responsible for transferring nutrients up and down their trunk.
Photo: Benjamin Smith | Flickr
