Washington state is seeing the rapid expansion in its Japanese beetle infestation. Thirty-four of the highly destructive critters have been found in Pasco, well outside the perimeter where they were identified last year.
Camile Acasto, an eradication expert specializing in Japanese beetles for the State of Washington’s Department of Agriculture, spoke at a Franklin County Commission meeting on Wednesday, July 17, where she described the infestation as a “huge issue,” adding that they’re watching it “unfold in real time.”
Three traps near North Fourth Avenue in Pasco caught some Japanese beetles around the fourth of July. One of the traps was situated in Sylvester Park, and two of them were at Volunteer park. The beetles have also been trapped just east of the blue bridge on the Colombia River.
The invasive beetle species can feed on over three hundred different sorts of plants. They’ve been known to strip garden plants of their leaves, denude lawns, devastate grape crops, and wreak havoc in parks and on golf courses. Should the situation get severe enough, farmers could find their markets restricted to only those other areas of the country already infested with the Japanese beetle.
Thus far, the Washington state infestation appears to be limited mostly to Yakama country and the western edge of Benton County, concentrated along a sixty-five mile stretch of Interstate 82.
With this new infestation, officials are hoping to learn from the mistakes they made in Yakima county. There they wound up having to establish a 74 square-mile quarantine area within which all yard debris, topsoil, plants, flowers, and potted plants are trapped indefinitely.
Sunnyside and Grandview saw the capture of two more beetles in 2020. A massive trapping effort followed, harvesting upwards of 24,000 bugs every year—almost all of which were caught in the gradually-expanding infestation area in Yakima and Benton counties.
Property owners in the Pasco area are being contacted for permission to spray their land with insecticide that targets Japanese beetle larvae.
