Stuart MacKay and his merry band of loosestrife pluckers
at the Montlake Fill might take heart from an Associated
Press story today about the loosestrife-eating beetles
that the government has unleashed (so to speak) on selected
sites around the country.

--cheers, Jim Lyles, Tacoma


-------on-line article from the Boston Globe 7"17/97--------------


DEC unleashes beetles to fight purple loosestrife
infestation

Associated Press, 07/17/97 13:54

MONTEZUMA, N.Y. (AP) - The war against purple loosestrife is
on - a dark cloud of more than 20,000 loosestrife-chomping
beetles was released Thursday at Montezuma Wildlife Refuge.
Their mission: Chow down on the wicked weed.

Bob Lamoy, acting director of the refuge, pegged the number of
bugs, which briefly darkened the skies over Montezuma at
around 9:30 a.m., somewhere between 25,000 to 30,000. ``Quite
honestly, nobody sat there and went 1, 2, 3. It was a bunch of
bugs,'' Lamoy joked.

Loosestrife, that tall lavender plant that begins to bloom every
year in late summer, is no laughing matter, though. It is a
relentless invader, covering an estimated 400,000 acres
nationwide and crowding out other wetland plants and animals.

Loosestrife is prolific in areas as small as roadside ditches and as
large as the Montezuma refuge, a 6,400-acre, federally protected
wildlife sanctuary at the northern tip of Cayuga Lake in central
New York.

Standing as high as seven feet, purple loosestrife grows in such
thick tangles that other native plants get choked out, making life
more precarious for waterfowl and other animals that need those
plants to survive.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dubbed purple loosestrife
``Public Enemy No. 1'' on federal lands. It's estimated that $45
million is lost each year on control efforts and damaged forage.

Many of the wildlife refuges in upstate New York are infested
with loosestrife, which cannot be eradicated because herbicides
that kill the plant are not approved for state-protected swamps
and marshes.

``It forms an impenetrable tangle not suited for nesting birds, and
insects don't eat it,'' said Bernd Blossey, a bio-control specialist
at Cornell University.

As part of the government's counteroffensive, five species of
loosestrife-eating beetles have been introduced in selected areas
around the nation over the past four years. The species
separately concentrate on a leaf-eating, flower-chomping and
root-boring approach that appears to be working so far.

Researchers at Cornell used a $300,000 federal grant to breed the
critters. Galerucella pusilla are tiny - measuring 3/16 of an inch
long and 1/16 of an inch wide - and tan-colored with some
darker stripes running across their bodies. No purple can be
found on them, unless you take them into the lab: ``Only in their
gut, I suspect,'' Lamoy said.

The beetles' diet consists only of purple loosestrife, so scientists
hope to solve the problem without messy side effects.

``It is the perfect solution, if it works,'' Blossey said. ``They are my
little insect friends. Purple loosestrife is too abundant now, but in
about 10 years the numbers will be reduced and we'll be able to
really enjoy it. The insects will keep it in check.''

The beetles will need time to do the work, reproduce and head out
to other plants. Over a couple of decades, researchers predict the
purple loosestrife population will be reduced by 90 percent.

``This should be a permanent control of the plant,'' Blossey said.


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