Bar the door. Grab a rifle. Call the SWAT team.
The spotted lanternflies have arrived! Swarms and swarms of them!
Wait. We might not need to panic about lanternflies after all.
The population of spotted lanternflies, first seen here five years ago, has exploded in New Haven in recent months. People are spotting the brown-black-yellow-red travelers in bushes, on outdoor tables, on trees, hopping from plant to plant. Sometimes one at a time, spreading its colorful inch-and-a-half-long wings. Sometimes dozens or hundreds at a time, climbing trees, covering outdoor walls. Reports and questions and concerns about the invaders now account for most of the public inquiries fielded by bug officials at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Like the gyspsy moths of the 1980s, they have people worried about mass tree deaths. Like the West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes of the aughts, they have people worried about outdoor dangers in the fall. Neighbors have jerry-rigged cloth "lampshade" traps around their trees to catch and kill them and their eggs. Others are spreading the word for people to squash each spotted lanternfly they see, or risk losing our maples and elms and birches.
Well, I have some good news.
Yes, spotted lanternflies are pests. We don't want them hitchhiking to California to destroy grape crops. We probably don't want the occasional swarm leaving slippery viscous poop on our sidewalks.
But there's no cause for alarm. We don't even need to kill them. They won't eat our trees (at least the ones we want). Or hurt us.
At least that's the updated takeaway I got from a conversation Tuesday with ag station-based State Entomologist (top bug guy) Jacob Ricker on WNHH FM's "Dateline New Haven."
Ricker reported that the ag station crew has kept an eye out for spotted lanternflies since they arrived in Pennsylvania (probably from China) 13 years ago. The bugs gradually made their way north. The first sightings were reported here in 2020. But only now have they established themselves as multigenerational Elm Cityites.
"They're born and raised in New Haven. These are New Haven spottled lanternflies," Ricker reported.
The pests do cause concerns. One concern, he said, is that pests bother people. Especially "swarms of new insects." Period. Part of Ricker's job is to give people factual information about the bugs.
Another concern: They eat grapes and kill grape plants. They can endanger agriculture as a result. So the ag station has issued a "quarantine order" to ensure that Connecticut growers and manufacturers don't ship crops or machines with spotted lanternfly hitchhikers. California is a particular worry for officials, because of the potential threat to that state's grape industry. Like the flower children sticking their thumbs out on Bay Area-bound highways in the 1960s, these travelers may not meet universal welcome in the Golden State.
Connecticut has vineyards, too. But it turns out the lanternflies that do show up there have eaten nearby "Tree of Heaven" but haven't attacked the plants, according to Ricker. Growers have successfully taken precautions to protect their crops.
Contrary to popular conception in New Haven these days, the spotted lanternflies don't eat most trees that exist around here. Just one, the Tree of Heaven. Which in and of itself isn't a big problem. Because, like spotted lanterflies, Tree of Heaven is an invasive species. We actually don't want them here. One downside of lanternflies eating those trees, though, is that they grow stronger and have more babies, according to Ricker.
The ag station is collecting data bout the lanternflies to share with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which takes the lead in addressing lanternfly threats.
"Initially, we had a lot of media out there saying that spotted lanternfly was going to be a massive threat to our forests. It's going to be the massive tree pest of the century, our new spongy moth, or gypsy moth, if you will. But over time, we discovered that there was really no major tree death or mortality from spotted lanternfly. The primary concern was to the grapes, so we're looking out primarily for grapes," Ricker said.
So do people really need to go Charles Bronson on lanternflies in New Haven?
"It is not necessary. It can certainly make people feel better, which helps," Ricker said. "Removing tree of heaven is more of the priority."
In the meantime, Ricker expects New Haven's lanternfly population to dwindle over the next two years, even without human citizens swatting random insect individuals. That's because insect-eating birds are still getting used to the arrivals. Once the robins and the other predators discover the new delicacy on the menu, they'll do the job for us, Ricker predicted.
As for those Asian longhorn beetles making their way through Massachusetts and New York and causing real damage to maple and elm trees ... they haven't been spotted here yet. But once they are, Ricker and the ag crew are ready to act.
Meanwhile, spotted lanternflies popped up in Tuesday night's mayoral debate between incumbent Democrat Justin Elicker and Republican challenger Steve Orosco.
During a lightning round of questions at the end, moderator (and Independent editor) Tom Breen asked each candidate if they prefer to crush lanternflies or let them fly away.
"I try to crush them all the time," Elicker said.
"Guilty of letting them fly away," Orosco said.
Click on the below video to watch the full conversation with writer/poet State Entomologist Jacob Ricker on WNHH FM's "Dateline New Haven." Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of "Dateline New Haven."