APHIS – PLANT PROTECTION AND QUARANTINE (PPQ)

ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (IDA)

SITUATION REPORT: Asian Longhorned Beetle

Week of August 18, 2008

Urgent Conditions: None

Pending Operations: Completed request for additional staff to transition from rapid detection survey activity to a structured detection/outreach initiative. Expectations are: continued survey for ALB and increased outreach to engage communities and industry in ALB detection efforts.

Survey Operations:

·  To date, no ALB infestations have been detected. Community awareness and cooperation is very good.

·  4,702 ALB primary host trees were ground surveyed through 08/21/08.

2-6 DBH / 7-14 DBH / 15-22 DBH / 23+ DBH / Total
Reporting Period / 826 / 871 / 546 / 458 / 2701
Total / 1448 / 1496 / 974 / 784 / 4702
Percent of Total / 31% / 32% / 21% / 17%

Operations Update:

·  ALB Hotline (847-699-2424): This reporting period, 7 calls have been received on the hotline. Survey crews will follow up next week with call-backs and possible site visits.

Regulatory Actions: None

Program Resources:

PPQ (Redirect) – 1 Supervisor, 1 PSS, 2 PHSS, 3 Techs, and 2 LAs

IDA (Redirect) – 4 Inspectors

Treatment: None

Communications and Outreach:

·  Bob Benjamin gave a short ½ hour ALB presentation to approximately 40 Deerfield Public Works Employees. Presentation was at the Deerfield City Hall.

Background Chronology:

·  On August 1, an alert citizen contacted the Public Works Department of Deerfield, Illinois and reported a suspect Asian Longhorned Beetle adult.

·  Urban Forest Management, Inc., consulting arborist to the Village of Deerfield, collected the beetle sample and notified the Illinois State Plant Regulatory Official, who in turn notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s State Plant Health Director (SPHD) in Illinois. The consulting arborist mailed the specimen to the Illinois SPHD’s office.

·  The citizen found the insect on the front tire of car belonging to another individual. The car was parked at a Deerfield shopping plaza.

·  On August 4, upon receipt of the specimen in the mail, the SPHD notified USDA APHIS PPQ regional officials and sent the specimen to the Agricultural Research Service Systematic Entomology Laboratory for confirmation.

·  The specimen was confirmed as ALB on August 5, 2008.

·  Illinois PPQ personnel with ALB experience, working with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, mobilized a rapid detection survey of the half mile area surrounding the location where the ALB was found.

·  Survey teams are looking for signs of infestation in jurisdictions that include The Village of Deerfield, Northbrook, Northfield Township, and Highland Park, Illinois.

·  No infested trees have been identified in The Village of Deerfield, Northbrook, Northfield Township or Highland Park at this time.

·  The Village of Deerfield is located about 12 miles north of the northern boundary of the previously regulated area of Chicago.

·  The last ALB observed in Illinois was in 2003 in the Oz Park neighborhood of the City of Chicago.

·  After nearly five years with no ALBs detected through comprehensive survey and regulatory efforts or reported by citizens through intensive public outreach efforts in and around Illinois’s infested areas, the beetle was declared eradicated from the infested areas of Chicago and from surrounding satellite infestations earlier this year.

·  State and Federal officials are asking the public for help in determining from where this insect may have come. Previous ALB infestations have been found by alert citizens who recognized the ALB as an insect of concern and reported it to officials, or who were curious about an insect they had never seen before and performed research that led them to report it.

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