The forest patrol
Tiny, sap-sucking bugs strip hemlock needles and open a forest’s cooling canopy to sunlight.
Exotic green beetles drill into ash trees and leave offspring that kill by carving tunnels that choke off circulation.
Brightly decorated little poopers rain down excrement that’s euphemistically called “honeydew” because it attracts other insects to devastated apple trees and other hardwoods.
These are the sorts of Asian forest invaders that Roman and Leslie Kucharczyk hoped they were escaping when they moved north to the Adirondacks a few years ago. Now they’re among a small but growing army of park residents learning to spot the signs so they can alert authorities to their presence and protect the North Country’s wild forests.
They lost a hemlock to the woolly adelgid at their previous home in southeastern Pennsylvania, and now the pest has shown up in the park near
