State officials: Kill this bug if you see it

Virginia officials are urging citizens to kill a destructive bug if they see it.

The spotted lanternfly colonizes quickly, disrupts native ecosystems, and can potentially cause problems to agriculture and forest health. It’s also a significant threat to Virginia’s grape and wine industries.

“We need to prevent spotted lanternfly from going somewhere else and becoming a bigger problem. Make sure it does not move on vehicles or plants and remove and squish any you find,” said Eric Day, manager of the Insect ID Lab in the Virginia Tech Department of Entomology.

Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are partnering to help inform citizens about the bugs.

You can help yb checking places like car wheel wells, boat trailers, or box trucks to make sure the unwanted bug haven’t found a free ride.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services established a spotted lanternfly quarantine in 2019, and expanded it in 2021, to slow the spread of the pest to surrounding areas.

The initial quarantined areas included northwestern portions of the state: Frederick, Warren, and Clarke counties, along with the city of Winchester. The quarantine requires any vehicles moving goods across county lines to first be inspected for spotted lanternfly or their eggs to prevent this hitchhiker from spreading further.

In July 2022, the spotted lanternfly quarantine was significantly expanded to include more Northern and Central Virginia localities, as well as some in the western part of the state. That list includes: Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Lynchburg, Manassas, Manassas Park, Staunton, Waynesboro, Albemarle, Augusta, Carroll, Page, Prince William, Rockingham, Rockbridge, Shenandoah, and Wythe.

“I’ve been impressed with the citizens of Virginia in their efforts to reduce the impact of the spotted lanternfly,” Day said. “Active citizens and businesses in quarantine areas have helped slow spread significantly. Now, to stop this insect from becoming a bigger problem, we must take action to make sure this hitchhiking insect doesn’t get any free rides through our state.”