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| Gonocerus acuteangulatus (Goeze 1778) boxbug image from British Bugs web site |
Invasive species are all around
us. The eat our lunch, they make us sick, and they change our landscapes.
Invasive species cost us money...lots of money...some say over 130 billion
dollars a year in the United States alone. Most of only get excited about
invasive species when they directly and immediately injure us personally. We remain landscape illiterate convinces that
food comes from stores, and clean water from pipes.
The United States Department of
Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS) works to
stave off the introduction and establishment of harmful invasive species.[1]
APHIS and its ever-smaller budgets is faced with more "stuff' coming in to
US ports each year. And who is APHIS' stakeholder that should be clamoring for
increases to protect our pockets, food, and health? Why we the very people who
have no clue. Somehow we have the idea that the
infrastructure started by Lincoln and enhanced by Presidents through the 1960s
now needs no support at all. Our arrogance is only unsurpassed by our inability
to see tomorrow.
If you live in the Mid-Atlantic
you already know about the stink bug because it decided to not only cost the
fruit industry millions but more importantly for you, because it moved in by
the thousands to your personal space and caused you discomfort. So you call on
APHIS and demand to know why and then fail to give it the money to prevent the
next critter from moving in.
With little support from the
calmly disinterested public (those without stink bugs, pythons, flying fish and
rock snot in their lives so far), the dedicated employees of APHIS and its sister
organizations ARS and the Forest Service) work to keep the next invader out of
your personal space. They work tirelessly to safeguard the United States much
like the heroic 'Little Dutch boy' who stuck his finger in a hole in the dike
to save his world from certain doom.
And
what has APHIS done lately for you - especially those of you who garden or make
your living selling plants? In December, the keen eyes of USDA APHIS port
inspectors in Baltimore, Maryland spotted for the first time a Coreid, Gonocerus acuteangulatus (Goeze 1778). G. acuteangulatus, commonly called known
as a boxbug in the United Kingdom, id a "relatively large reddish-brown
squashbug, distinguished from the commoner Coreus
marginatus by the narrower abdomen and more pointed lateral extremities of
the pronotum. Nymphs have a green abdomen." The website,
British Bugs, goes on to describe this new invader to the US as historically
very rare in the British Isles and known only from Box Hill in Surrey, where it
feeds on box trees (boxwoods). British Buigs continues its report noting that
the "bug is expanding its range and now occurs widely in the south-east of
England and beyond. It is exploiting different foodplants, and has been found
on hawthorn, buckthorn, yew and plum trees." Reports from England report
that it seems prefers berry bearing species such as hollies and ivies.[2]
The boxbug is also reported as a major
problem for hazelnut production in Italy.[3]
APHIS
also reports that the recently intercepted boxbug, G. acuteangulatust is a primary pest of boxwood, but is also
recorded feeding on important landscape and garden plants such as hawthorn,
buckthorn, yew and plum trees. According to a report in the Washington Times,
the boxbug, referred to as a squashbug in the article, was "destined for Eldersburg, Md. CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
issued an Emergency Action Notification to the importer requiring the shipment
to be re-exported or destroyed."[4]
The possible introduction of this
invasive pest would add to the litany of invasive species problems facing
farmers and gardeners in the United States. We, all of us, should be actively supporting
enhanced funding for USDA APHIS. It is worth noting that APHIS also quietly
protects natural areas from invasive species that creep through our trade
routes into our ports and out into our fields and woods.
[1] The
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is a multi-faceted Agency with a
broad mission area that includes protecting and promoting U.S. agricultural
health, regulating genetically engineered organisms, administering the Animal
Welfare Act and carrying out wildlife damage management activities. These efforts support the overall mission of
USDA, which is to protect and promote food, agriculture, natural resources and
related issues.
To protect agricultural health, APHIS is on the job 24
hours a day, 7 days a week working to defend America’s animal and plant
resources from agricultural pests and diseases.
For example, if the Mediterranean fruit fly and Asian longhorned beetle,
two major agricultural pests, were left unchecked, they would result in several
billions of dollars in production and marketing losses annually. Similarly, if foot-and-mouth disease or
highly pathogenic avian influenza were to become established in the United
States, foreign trading partners could invoke trade restrictions and producers
would suffer devastating losses. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/about_aphis/
[2] The
Essex Field Club. http://www.essexfieldclub.org.uk/portal/p/Species+Account/s/Gonocerus%20acuteangulatus
[3]
Vaccino et al. 2008. Detection of damage due to bug feeding on hazelnut and wheat
by biochemical techniques. Bulletin of Insectology 61 (1): 189-190.
[4] Jerry
Seper. December 12, 2012. ‘Squashbug’
nabbed at Baltimore Harbor. The Washington Time. [accessed January 19,
2013] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/12/squashbug-nabbed-baltimore-harbor/
"The importer plans to
fumigate.
Upon Friday’s discovery of
the bug, CBP forwarded the specimen to a USDA Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service Plant Protection and Quarantine entomologist for
identification. CBP agriculture specialists work closely with USDA to protect
the nation’s agriculture resources against the introduction of foreign plant
pests and animal diseases.
CBP agriculture specialists
have extensive training and experience in the biological sciences and
agricultural inspection. On a typical day, they inspect tens of thousands of
international air passengers, and air and sea cargoes nationally being imported
to the United States and seize 4,291 prohibited meat, plant materials or animal
products, including 470 insect pests."
Read more:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/12/squashbug-nabbed-baltimore-harbor/#ixzz2IQluwQPK
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